110 HYMENOPTKRA. 



I have not seen many species during the last five or six 

 years. 



The social species of bees and wasps have suffered much 

 less diminution in number than the solitary ones, particularly 

 such as construct nests underground ; those Humble Bees 

 that build on the surface have become extremely scarce — 

 I have not observed half-a-dozen during the past season. 



Bombus lapidarlus, B. terrestris, B. kortoruni, B, sub- 

 terraywa, and B. lucorutn, have all appeared in increased 

 numbers ; I observed all these species in Kent, Surrey, 

 Suffolk and Dorsetshire. Wasps, I have been informed, 

 have been plentiful in some localities, but certainly not in 

 the vicinity of London ; nor did I observe one during a 

 month's stay in Suffolk; but I was told at VVareham, in 

 Dorset, that they had been very numerous there : in fact I 

 saw a good many in October, in houses and shops in that 

 town. I was amused to find that common wasps, that is, 

 V. vulgaris and germanicay are called hornets at Wareham, 

 but of the true hornet, I could not learn that they had any 

 knowledge. I was told that, earlier in the season, they had 

 been troubled with a great number of white wasps, a species 

 of which I certainly have no knowledge. Under stones on 

 the Downs and Purbeck Hills I found several female wasps 

 in a semi-torpid state — I conclude laid up for the winter. 



Mr. Eaton, of Blandford, in Dorsetshire, gives a list of 

 IIymeno2)tera captured in that county, several of which I 

 have not seen during the past two or three seasons : Tiphia 

 femorata, at Blandford ; Crahro dimidiatus, at Studland ; 

 Osmia spinnlosaf at Lyme Regis, and Bombus suhterraneus 

 and Apatkus 7nipestris plentiful at Blandford. 



We thus find some species that have become apparently 

 extinct in old localities, still appearing plentifully in new 

 ones. Such occurrences are notev/orthv, and lead us confi- 



