FOSSO/^ES. 43 



Sphecodes, but falling other cliaracters their simple (not 

 branched) hairs will at once serve to show the section they 

 belong to. The tongue in all the genera is blunt and 

 bifid, although in some, such as Sapyga, Ammophila, &c., 

 it is of considerable leugth ; none of the species are densely 

 hairy, most of them being clothed only with a few scattered 

 hairs, although in Mutilla they are more abundant ; many 

 of the genera make their nests in sandy soils and hide the 

 hole when they leave it by shuffling sand over it. Fabre, 

 in his Souvenirs Entomologiques, gives a most interesting 

 account of Bemhex (a genus not represented in Britain), 

 marked specimens of which he removed to a consider- 

 able distance from their homes, letting them out of a 

 window in a house situated in a town, and found that they 

 went straight back into their apparently hidden holes ; the 

 J in this section has no pollen-collecting apparatus, and 

 the first joint of the posterior tarsi is not dilated as it is 

 in nearly all the Anthofhila ; the hairs are simple, the 

 autennoe are thirteen-jointed in the (J, twelve in the ?; 

 the neuration of the wings affords useful characters, as 

 well as the form of the ventral apical segments of the 

 abdomen in the S ■ The section may be divided into two 

 natural divisions by the following thoracic characters : — 



I. Pronotum much produced backwards dorsally and laterally, its 



posterior angles reaching to the tegnlaa of the wings, or ? 

 apterous. 



II. Pronotum not much produced backwards, often consisting of 



little more than a narrow collar, its posterior angles produced 

 but not exteudiiig to the tegula;; J never apterous. 



DIVISION I. 



(4j 1. Eyes small, or large and reniform, not touching 



the base of the mandibles. 

 (3) 2. (^ with penicilli on the eighth dorsal valve, or 



an upturned process on the eighth ventral, 



? apterous Mltillidj;. 



(2) 3. Eyes large and reniform, cj with the valves 



of the eighth segment simple, $ winged . SaPYGIU.-k. 

 (1) 4. Eyes large, touching tlie base of the mandibles. 



