of the Aculeate Ili/fne/ioptera. 59 



seems that Chelostoma maxiUosa nourishes several parasites, as Foenus Jaculutor and 

 Plmpla Manifestator are said to deposit their eggs in her nest. 



Note 3. page 55. — The theory itself is rendered very doubtful by my having 

 captured Gorytes campestris of St. Fargeau (which, according to him, should be a 

 parasite, from its simple legs and tarsi,) conveying its prey, the pupa of Tettigonia 

 spumaria, into its cell, excavated in the vertical section of a sand-bank : the burrow 

 was about four inches deep, and took rather an oblique direction inclining down- 

 wards. By the absence of provision, this was evidently its first journey after com- 

 pleting its labour of digging the cavity. It would have pleased me better to have 

 captured it the following day, when doubtless there would have been a store of 

 food laid up, as well as eggs deposited, but I was too anxious to secure its testimony 

 to emancipate it, and I therefore preserve it with its prey in my collection. The 

 fact related by Mr. Westwood in a short paper recently read by him, of having taken 

 Odynerus Antilope with a green larva, does not bear so strongly upon the point as 

 my instance, as St. Fargeau's theory does not extend to the Diploptera, none of 

 which have either cilia or spines to their tarsi and legs, although in habits they 

 differ materially ; but I much doubt whether any but the genus Vespa are social. It 

 will be understood that I allude to British ones only. 



Note 4. page 5G. — I here embody in a note the few observations that were read 

 on the 5th of May 1834, and which were drawn up by me as supplementary to this 

 paper. " Since the reading of my paper upon the habits of the Aculeate Hymenoptera, 

 but chiefly the Fossores, and wherein I was induced to express much doubt as to 

 the plausibility of the supposition of St. Fargeau, that the spines which arm the 

 tibia of the majority of this tribe were for the purpose of enabling the insect to 

 convey its prey, it has been my good fortune to meet with a specimen of the female 

 of Crahro cribrarius which will possibly tend to solve satisfactorily this problem. 

 From the observed habits of some of these insects it is a well-known fact that the 

 female closes the aperture of the burrow wherein she has deposited her egg and the 

 supply of food for the nourishment of the larva when disclosed. Instinct guides 

 her to do this to secure her delicate progeny from the attacks of the insects that 

 might be fatal to it, or might possibly consume its provision, and perhaps also for 

 the exclusion of the atmosphere, which in some situations would too quickly absorb 

 the moisture of the provision laid up in store, (for the cell is always excavated beyond 

 the mere dry exterior crust into the damp sand beneath), although I expect that 

 the egg is speedily hatched, and the insect changes into a pupa before winter, in 

 which state it lies dormant until it is called into active existence in the ensuing 

 spring, when it comes forth to revel in the enjoyment of life, and to perform its 

 more important functions in the oeconomy of Nature. 



This fact of their stopping up the hole of their burrow being well attested, and 

 indeed a matter of almost daily observation with such entomologists as prefer watch- 

 ing and investigating the habits of insects, and who in their rambles through the 

 fields delight in contemplating Nature generally, finding 



" Tongues in trees. 

 Books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, 

 And good in everything," 



to the mere acquisition of specimens, may, I think, safely be applied by analogy even 

 to such (not being parasites) from which good fortune or recorded observation has 

 not yet lifted the veil. 



The specimen of the female oi Crahro cribrarius which I mentioned above, has 

 the posterior tibiae loaded on each side with a thick plaster of clay. The riddle is 



