HYMENOPTERA. — CRABRONIDE. “a 197 
in the straw of a thatch*, providing them with Aphides, as many as a 
hundred of which were found in some of them. The egg is white and 
semitransparent, and is attached to the abdomen of an Aphis, at the 
bottom of the cell. (Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. Jan. 1837.) 
Fig. 82. 

The beautiful genus Cerceris Laér. is distinguished from all the 
other British species by the contraction of the segments of the abdomen 
(fig. 82. 7. 8,8.9.) The males have a long moustache on each side of 
the clypeus, just above the base of the mandibles, as figured by Savigny 
in the great work on Egypt ; who also represents some species as having 
the face produced in front into a short nose, and the labium on each side 
armed at the base with slender paraglosse. There is considerable 
diversity in the habits of the species. Walckenaer has given us a mi- 
nute detail of the economy of C. ornata, which forms its nest in foot- 
paths, and other situations exposed to the sun, to the depth of about 
five inches, but in a tortuous direction. The provision which this in- 
sect lays up in store for its progeny consists of different species of 
Halictus (H. terebrator Walck. and a small green species), which 
abound in the same situations; three individuals of the former and 
one of the latter being enclosed, in a half-dead state, for the supply 
of one larva. (Mr. Shuckard mentions H. rubicundus, fulvo-cinctus, 
and leucozonius; and Walckenaer adds, that when, at the close of the 
season, the Halictus terebrator becomes scarce, the Cerceris will take 
* Psen? caliginosus? is recorded in the Entomological Mayazine (No. 21.) to 
make its cells in straws of a thatch, each straw containing as many as ten or twelve of 
the larve: the statement, however, that in the month of August many of the straws 
frequented by them were filled with a sweet glutinous substance, seems to contradict 
the opinion that these insects were the legitimate inhabitants of the straws, 
o 3 
