202 INSECTS. 



three genera, these containing only five species. They 

 appear to be very nearly related in both their form and 

 their habits to the Sand-wasps, among which indeed 

 they are placed by Mr. Westwood and other writers. 

 The females are wingless, of robust figure, have 

 spinous legs fitted for digging, and are without the 

 small simple eyes called ocelli. They are active insects 

 and are found running on the ground in sandy places. 

 The males are winged, and, as has been said above, are 

 spicate at the tip of the abdomen. They have three 

 ocelli, and their compound eyes are somewhat kidney- 

 shaped, and larger than those of the female, which are 

 round. In size the English species vary from l-8th to 

 2-8rds of an inch, and the relative size of insects of 

 the opposite sexes varies, the males being the larger in 

 some species, and the females in others. The wings will 

 be found in the table of wings of Hymenoptera. 



The female of the largest European species, Mutilla 

 Europaea (PL VII. fig. 2), can hardly have escaped the 

 observation of the young entomologist, less because it is 

 not very rare, than on account of its unusual appearance, 

 which is that of a stout, hairy, wingless, red and black 

 ant, of two-thirds of an inch in length. The male is smaller 

 than the female, and somewhat varies in the distribution 

 of its colours, but both are clothed with bands of pale 

 glittering hairs, alternated with bands of scanty black 

 down. 



The habits of these solitary ants are as yet but little 

 known, but it seems probable that they are parasitic in 

 the nests' of other insects, carnivorous, and predaceous. 

 The female possesses a powerful sting. 



