PGA MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
Jig: 84. 4. maxilla; 84. 5. labium ; 84. 6. antenna @? ), which is the only 
genus of the first subfamily found in this country, make perpendicular 
burrows in sandy situations, for the reception of their eggs ; but the 
precise food stored up for the larve has not been observed. The 
veins of the wings of this genus do not extend to the extremity of the 
wings; they also vary in the sexes, the marginal cell being closed at 
the extremity in the males, but open in the females, which are further 
distinguished by having the extremity of the wing notched (as is also 
the case in Meria; jig. 84. 7. represents the extremity of the wing of 
the male of Tiphia). 
Sapyga Latr., the typical genus of the second subfamily, is distin- 
guished by the long and more or less clavate antenne ( jig. 84. 12. 
antenna, 84. 10. mandible, of S. 5-punctata). The perfect insects 
are found, in the hottest part of the summer, flying over walls, palings, 
&c.; but their economy has been the subject of various opinions. 
Thus St. Fargeau remarks (Aine. Mcth. tom. x. p. 338.), that the fe- 
males [which are destitute of ciliz to the fore legs} make burrows in 
the mortar of walls, or in wood, in which they deposit their eggs, 
with a supply of food; adding, that he had taken S. punctata carry- 
ing an insect, which it let fall the moment it was seized, and which 
St. Fargeau observed was a larva. Latreille, however, suspects that 
the species are parasitic upon some of the bees, which build in old 
wood ; and Mr. Shuckard states that he had caught S. punctata enter- 
ing into the cells of Osmia bicornis in a sandy lane at Bexley. Mr. 
Bakewell also had observed it thrusting its abdomen into the nests of 
Osmia czrulescens, as quoted by Mr. Shuckard ( Zrans. Ent. Soc. 
vol. i. p. 58.). My own observations (Zdzd. p. 202.) also seem to prove 
that it is parasitic. _ Robineau Desvoidey has, however, proved this 
fact, having found the cocoons of S. punctata in the cells of Osmia 
helicicola #. D. (so named from making its cells in empty snail- 
shells); in which situation he observed the metamorphoses of the 
Sapyga, without, however, having detected the female in her opera- 
tions. He also observed S. Chelostome enter the cells formed and 
provisioned by Chelostoma. My jig. 84.11. represents the labrum of 
this species, extracted from a specimen just killed ; the ligula and its 
paraglosse (which are not represented in Mr. Curtis’s figure, evidently 
drawn from a dried specimen) being long and exserted. I have also 
observed the eggs of S, punctata, which are of a large size, being a line 
long, and of an elongated eval form, slightly thickened towards one 
extremity. 
