NOTES ON HYMENOPTERA. 55 



very favourable situations, no doubt, some have survived, 

 but I fear several yeai-s must elapse ere we shall again see 

 them, as in previous seasons, visiting every flower in the early 

 days of spring. 



FossoRES. — The same influences that have reduced the 

 numbers of the solitary bees, have also equally thinned the 

 ranks of the fossorial group of the Acideata ; most of the 

 species of the genus Pompilus have in consequence become 

 rarities ; I have not observed more than three or four species 

 out of tv/enty tliat are indigenous. PompUus phimheus has 

 been tolerably numerous on the slopes of the sandy shores of 

 Suffolk and Norfolk, but it is an insect that usually appears 

 there in countless numbers, it being, according to my expe- 

 rience, the most abundant species of the genus. 



TiPHiA FEMORATA also appears in imm.ense hordes along 

 the same line of coast during favourable seasons ; their num- 

 bers were, however, very greatly diminished last season, and 

 such as were seen were exceedingly small examples — not 

 more than about half the usual size of the species. 



Ants. — We have a love for old books, particularly old 

 natural history books ; it is a great treat to us to ponder and 

 meander through the pages of "An Account of English 

 Ants ; by the Rev. William Gould, A.M., of Exeter College, 

 Oxon. Printed for A. Millar, opposite Catherine Street in 

 the Strand, mdccxlvii.," published four years previously fo 

 " The Fauna Suecica." These old books are wells of know- 

 ledge, and many an ingenious theory, and startling circum- 

 stance, that emanates from the fertile brain, or rewards the 

 patient observation of modern Entomologists, may be fished 

 out of them. As a theoretical instance, the following ob- 

 servations, to be found in Gould's volume, will recall a 

 subject which a few years ago attracted much attention from 



