60 



ON SOME SPECIES OF MASON WASPS AND THEIR 

 PARASITIC BEES. 



Bt ELMES Y. STEELE, Esq. 



Gentlemen, — Obedient to the call of our President I rise to present a few 

 observations on the habits of some species of hymenopterous insects, belonging 

 to the families of the solitary earth-working wasps, and of the bee-like insects, 

 their parasites. I ought perhaps to apologise for bringing this subject before 

 you, because my limited acquaintance with Natural History gives me no 

 pretension to the title of an entomologist ; but as a field naturalist I have been 

 for the last few weeks past deeply interested la studying the operations of 

 these insects under the promptings of their marvellous instinct, and I have 

 thought that the page I have thus been reading might possess sufficient attraction 

 to gratify those members of our club who may not be already familiar with it. 

 Let me, then, introduce to your notice a sunny spot within a quarter of a mile 

 of Abergavenny, where lies an ash tree of aboiat fifty years' growth, prostrated 

 by one of last winter's gales. This tree had been for about two years under the 

 keen observation of my fiieud. Dr. Chapman, who discovered that it was being 

 ravaged by a wood-boring beetle, Hyhsinus crenatus, and that ere long it woxild 

 decay and fall to the ground. When this predicted event had come to pass it 

 became the prey of Hiilesinus fraxini, and of many other insect wood-destroyers. 

 Dr. Chapman, whose interesting paper, read at our last meeting, was published 

 in the Hereford Times on the 13th inst. , computes that up to the present time at 

 least forty species of. insects have found a lodgment and food within, or building 

 materials upon, this fallen trunk. It was whilst pursuing his hunting explora- 

 tions after beetles that my friend became aware of the fact that Odynerus 

 Spinipes, one of the solitary wasps had taken possession, not indeed of the tree 

 itself, but of the sandy clay which had been brought up with the roots when it 

 fell. This curious insect (Odynerus 3Iurcirias of Latreille, Vespa Muraria of 

 Linnaeus) is called solitary because each female excavates a burrow in the soil, 

 ■wherein she forms cells for the lodgment of her eggs, and does so unaided by 

 other individuals of the species ; unlike, in this respect, to the tribe of wasps, 

 with which we are more familiar, who, as is well known, construct a complex 

 habitation, built up of woody fibres agglutinated together into a sort of paper, in 

 which operation they are associated, often in great numbers, and thence are 

 called social wasps. Odynerus Spinipes, if it be not social, is not, however, 

 unsociable, for. as in the instance I am relating, many individuals may congregate 

 on the same spot if the material and the situation be favourable. I need not 

 enter into a systematic description of her anatomy, for I have come provided with 

 the insect herself, which I will now pass round the table for your inspection. 

 You will find her set up in company with the other insects, to whose history I 

 propose to draw your attention. Well, then, this wasp, which is a burrowing 



