ee 
66 Rev. F. D. Morice on 
known also from Egypt; others were described as new by 
Saunders in last year’s Transactions (Part IV), but un- 
happily he did not live to describe the finest of all. (See 
below, Tachytes swperbiens, n. sp.) 
Owing to the long time which has elapsed between the 
forming and recording of these collections, several insects 
which, when we found them, were “new to science,” have 
since been discovered and described by others, e.g. Anei- 
stromma europaca, Mercet, Cerceris hartliebi, Schulz, ete. 
The same may have occurred in the case of some species 
here treated as new, but I hope not often. The literature 
on the subject is scattered, and my own acquaintance with 
it far from profound. But Saunders kept careful note of 
such descriptions as they appeared, and inserted them in 
an interleaved MS. catalogue of Palaearctic Aculeates 
(extracted from v. Dalla Torre’s work) which I now 
possess ; and correspondence with Kohl, Mercet, Schmiede- 
knecht and others has kept me generally pretty well 
informed as to the gvorks that have been published of 
recent years relating to the Sphegidae of Europe and N. 
Africa. If I have inadvertently overlooked any previously 
published description of any of these insects, I trust the 
author will accept this apology. 
It may be thought that I have been almost over-careful 
to record all Mr. Eaton’s notes on “colour of eyes in life,” 
“plants visited by particular species,” etc. Taken as a 
whole, however, they embody a large number of facts, 
which may possibly hereafter become of value in ways 
which cannot now be foreseen, as bearing on problems 
not yet raised by scientific workers. Mr. Saunders, I 
know, was at first very hopeful on this head; though I 
believe he latterly felt some doubt as to the utility of 
enumerating, one by one, all the countless species resort- 
ing to such universally attractive flowers as Ammz visnaga 
at Biskra, etc. Still one never knows what dry bones of 
fact may have life breathed into them by some future 
Darwin; so I give these records as I find them. 
It must of course always be remembered, that preda- 
ceous insects like the Sphegidae may be attracted to a 
particular plant for various reasons—e. g. in quest of other 
insects frequenting it, as well as to suck the nectar of its 
flowers. But collectors who are also botanists will cer- 
tainly find it helpful on commencing work in a locality 
which is fresh to them to have a preliminary idea of the 
