152 HYMENOPTERA ACULEATA. 



clotlied with long pale hairs, apical margin of mandibles, 

 a line across the face, above the clypeus, and the region of 

 the ocelli, black or dark, antennsB brown, very long in the 

 $ , the joints bituberculate beneath, scape yellow in front ; 

 thorax punctured and hairy like the head, sides of the 

 mesonotum and a narrow central line dark, wings smoky, 

 nervures testaceous ; abdomen rather remotely punctured, 

 clothed with pale hairs, apex of the first segment very 

 narrowly and regularly, of the second broadly and irregu- 

 larly, and the whole of the following segments, except two 

 or three basal spots, yellow, beneath yellow, the segments 

 more or less spotted with brown at the base ; legs with 

 projecting hairs, and also clothed with very fine, short, 

 silky pubescence, femora in the $ densely fringed with 

 long hairs beneath, anterior pair in both sexes strongly 

 curved. 



L. c? 23-25 mm., ? 25-30 mm., ? 18-23 mm. 



Nests in hollow trees, outhouses, &c. F. Smith says that 

 it has been known to nest also in a bank ; it is local, but 

 generally distributed in the South of England; it has not 

 been recorded from Ireland, and Mr. Newstead says that so 

 far as he knows it has not been taken in Cheshire or 

 North Wales, but Mr. T. A. Chapman saw a specimen at 

 Glencoe in the West Highlands in 1876. Smith mentions 

 that he has seen this species busily at work on a bright 

 moonlight night. Mr. V. R. Perkins says in his list of the 

 Hymenoptera Aculeata of Wotton-under-Edge, that the 

 late Mr. J. H. Cooke of Berkeley told him " that he had 

 lost no less than three hives of bees by these insects, which 

 found their way into the hives, and not only devoured the 

 honey, but destroyed the bees ; on removing the hives he 

 discovered in one of them a hornet's nest as large as a good 

 sized turnip." 



V. vulgaris, Linn. — Head black, finely punctured, and 

 clothed wiih long greyish black hairs, maudibles yellow 

 except aloug their apical margin, clypeus yellow with u 



