VOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 239 



I have walked hour after hour without seeing half a dozen speci- 

 mens of Halictus or Andrena; I took a few males of Andrena 

 Smithella on Easter Monda3\ I have not seen a single female 

 specimen of A. nlgro-cenea, A. bimacidata, or A. combinata ; these 

 are generally fairly abundant ; the first one is very common. I 

 have not seen more than half a dozen specimens of Nomada, and 

 most of those were N. ntficornis ; only one male of the genus 

 Megachile or leaf- cutters, two or three Osmia fidviventris, and 

 one solitary A7ithidium manicatum are all I have met with. It is 

 two years since I have seen a living Coslioxys, the parasite of the 

 leaf-cutters. The onl}^ exception to this dismal catalogue is the 

 true wasps ; in the spring the females were more abundant than 

 usual, but up to the present time the neuters have been far from 

 plentiful. Sawflies have been even worse than the Aculeates this 

 year ; I cannot remember that I have beaten a single fly into my 

 umbrella this season, and I am quite sure that I have not yet 

 seen a single s^jecimen of Tenthredopsis ; and many that are 

 usuallj'^ common have not put in an appearance. Ichneumons 

 are almost as scarce ; I have man}' a time beaten till tired for less 

 than a dozen insects. I have been fortunate enough to breed 

 both sexes of Pezomachus vagans from a spider's nest, and 

 Mr. Bignell has bred the two sexes of another Pezomachus. 

 I believe many species of Hemiteles and Pezomachus may still be 

 reared from spiders' nests ; I have bred three species of Pezo- 

 machus and three of Hemiteles from five different kinds of nests, 

 one of which was even guarded by the female spider in a rolled-up 

 nettle-leaf; I think many of tlie bred Pezomachi are lost in 

 consequence of their small size allowing them to slip through the 

 material that is used for ventilating the breeding-cases. I am 

 afraid the above miserable experience is very general ; all my 

 correspondents make the same complaints. In the July number 

 of the ' Entomologist ' was a very interesting account of a parasite 

 of Dicranura vimda, which the observer thought was Paniscus 

 testaceus ; I have had a great many of these parasites through my 

 hands, and all were P. cephalotes, a very closely allied species, 

 which has the head swollen behind the eyes; whilst in P. testaceus 

 it slopes towards the neck, when seen from above ; I think these 

 parasites most probably are P. cephalotes, not P. testaceus. — John 

 B. Bridgman ; Norwich, July, 1882. 



[The species bred by Mr. E. W. Andrews is Holmgren's 

 P. cephalotes. — E. A. F.j 



