94 A ST AT A. 



and posterior pairs somewhat darker ; the anterior tarsi strongly 

 ciliated outside, and all the legs spinose. Abdomen : the three 

 basal segments rufeseent, the second and third having on their 

 posterior margins on each side a transverse ovate yellow spot; 

 the margins of the fifth and sixth segments yellow. 



Male. Length 3} lines. — The head yellow, with the vertex 

 black, which descends on the face in an angular form, and 

 encloses the stemmata ; the scape yellow in front, the flagellum 

 fulvous beneath ; the collar, tubercles, and a spot behind them, 

 the teguhc, scutellum, and a minute spot at its anterior angles, 

 the post-scutellum and legs, yellow ; the intermediate coxa; 

 and trochanters, the intermediate femora beneath, and the pos- 

 terior pair except their apex, rufo-testaceous ; the wings slightly 

 coloured and iridescent. Abdomen : the three basal segments 

 yellow, with their margins ferruginous; the fourth segment 

 and base of the fifth black, with a yellow spot on each side on 

 the apical margin of the former; beneath piceous. 



This is an extremely rare insect ; it is recorded as having been 

 taken near Windsor; I once captured a male near the Ascot 

 Race-course, and have collected in that neighbourhood frequently 

 since, but no second example has occurred. 



Genus 4. ASTATA. 



Sphex, pt., Schrank, Ins. Austr. Ill (1781). 

 Astata, Latr. Prec. Car. Ins. (1796). 

 Larra, Don. Brit. Ins. xii. 73 (1795-1805). 

 Dimorpha, Jurine, Hym. 146 (1807). 



Head wider than the thorax, compressed ; eyes large, ovate, 

 converging in the female, uniting in the male ; stemmata placed 

 in a triangle forward on the vertex ; antennae filiform, inserted at 

 the base of the clypeus, arcuate in the female, porrect in the 

 male; the clypeus transverse, slightly reflexed and truncate in 

 front; mandibles slightly arcuate, bidentate, the apical tooth 

 acute. Thorax ovate; the collar transverse; the metathorax 

 truncated; the anterior wings with one marginal and three sub- 

 marginal cells, the marginal cell appendiculated and truncated 

 at its apex; the first submarginal narrow , longitudinal, divided 

 obliquely about its centre by an obsolete nervure that runs from 

 the base of the stigma to the middle of the first transverso-cubital 

 nervure ; the second triangular, receiving the two recurrent ner- 



