ORIENTAL ENTOMOLOGY. 93 



the month of May, 1882 ; the other is Vespa orientalis, resembling 

 our English one in colour and markings, but more elegant in 

 shape. This last one was swarming in December, 1883, in and 

 about Cairo and Heliopolis, being more particularly abundant on 

 the high mud- built walls in the vicinity of the Boulak Museum 

 and the Ostrich Farm ; and likewise found at Helwan, Lycopolis, 

 and on the roof of the Temple of Isis at Denderah, in which last 

 place it was seemingly engaged in attacking the clay-built cells 

 of another species of hymenopterous insect, a small rust-coloured 

 bee, Chalicodoma sicida, of which there are specimens from 

 Sicily and Algiers in the National Collection. Chrysis nobilis is 

 a small bee with blue metallic body, very much like a bluebottle 

 in size and general appearance, frequenting the flowering shrubs 

 in the public gardens at Cairo, in those of the palace of Gezeedeh, 

 and the mimosas bordering the fields in the neighbourhood of 

 Minieli. On referring to my cabinet I find that one specimen is 

 named Stilbum amethystinum, and it is possible that, on closer 

 examination, I may discover that I have both kinds, as this last 

 named and Chrysis nobilis are nearly allied species, and of 

 similar appearance. 



Among the wasps may be noticed two black-bodied species, 

 Eumenes hottentotta, from Cairo, and the larger E. tinctor 

 from a field to the south of Minieli ; both caught in the month 

 of December, 1883. I have a third species (probably a Eumenes 

 also) from the banks of the Pharpar, in April, 1882, whence I also 

 obtained a species of Mutilla, or winged ant (thorax rust-coloured, 

 body black, with pale yellow spots). Lastly, I have a small 

 portion of a tree-wasp's nest that I found on a shrub alongside 

 the high-road between Mersina and Tarsus, on the 29th of April. 

 Judging from the size of the cells it can only have been 

 constructed by a small species. 



Of Diptera I secured five species : two from the neighbour- 

 hood of Athens, — one Dasypogon pimctatiis on the hill of 

 Colonos, on June 9th, and the other, another kind of Dasypogon, 

 from the Stadium, at the end of May ; the third and fourth are 

 respectively a species of Tahanus, or horse-fly, from the plain of 

 the Litany, in April, and Laphria atra, Ephesus, in May; the 

 fifth, likewise from Ephesus, is as yet unnamed. 



Of Hemiptera I collected eight species, of which the five that 

 I succeeded in naming, and two of the unnamed also, are all red, 



