XXX. GORYTES. 213 
it. It is remarkable, that Linné’s accurate eye should not 
have observed the identity of his Sp. mystacea and Vespa 
campestris, and especially as he notices that the Sp. 
mystacea has sometimes a fourth yellow band. Why I 
place a sign of doubt in citing Fabricius’s Mellinus Arpactus 
is, because he describes the tibiz as yellow, and the pos- 
terior ones in the ¢ (he evidently describes a ¢) of the 
above species are black, with the exception of a ring at the 
extreme base and a line at the base, on the exterior, yellow. 
St. Fargeau wrongly cites it as the synonyme of his variety 
c. of the $ G. mystaceus, for his variety is founded on the 
absence of yellow on the prothorax; whereas Fabricius 
describes his as having a narrow yellow line on the anterior 
margin of the thorax: there is evidently an omission in 
Fabricius’s description, for the ‘ strigisque tribus flavis’ 
must certainly refer to the three following segments and 
not to the first, as it would appear ; for no hymenopterous 
insect, that I am acquainted with, has three bands of the 
same colour on one segment of the abdomen. Panzer in 
his ‘ Revision,’ p. 165, has clearly mixed two species, for 
he has mistaken the Linnean Vespa campestris to be his 
Mellinus arenarius, which however is very different and not 
identical with any yet discovered British species ; and I am 
also inclined to suspect that he had specimens of my next 
species in his eye at the same time. This species is com- 
mon in June and July about woods, and on Umbellifere. 
I have captured it with its prey, consisting of the larva of 
a species of Aphrophora, with which it was entering a sand 
bank, although its structure, according to St. Fargeau's 
theory, would make it a parasite, which this fact however 
contradicts. 
