Hymenopjfcera aculeata. 7 



similar, but with long lateral spines at the apex of the seutellum 

 Its legs seem perfectly simple. Smith described only the 9. 



c? Feminse similis; sed abdomine crassius punctato; scutello 

 ■trinque in spinam magnam compressam acutam (scapo antenna? 

 fere tequilongam) producto. Pedes simplices. — Long. circ. 7 mill. 



This is not the male doubtfully assigned by M. Vachal 

 pfiseell. Entomol. 1897) to tegidata, Smith, which has a simple 

 seutellum, dilated leg-joints etc., and is also differently coloured 

 from the present insect. But I feel little doubt as to the de- 

 termination of the latter. It was taken along with three females 

 which exactly agree with Smith's types of tegidata in the South 

 Kensington Museum, and the only characters by which it differs 

 from them appear to me to be merely sexual. These types are 

 all females; the author did not know the male, and it has not, 

 I believe, been described till now. 



The flagellum, mandibles, tegulae (except their membranous 

 apices), knees, extreme apex of hind tibiae, and tarsi are rufe- 

 scent, as are also more or less (but obscurely) the extreme base 

 and sides of the abdomen and the extreme apices of its segments. 

 The face is wide, with strongly converging eyes, which reach 

 close to the bases of the mandibles. The head, mesonotum, and 

 seutellum, viewed dorsally, are dull, finely rugulose, and with 

 shallow scattered punctures. The face, pronotum above, extreme 

 basal and apical margins of the mesonotum, and the whole post- 

 scutellum are clothed with a very dense short whitish pube- 

 scence. The seutellum is naked and its lateral margins are 

 produced into a pair of long, compressed, sharply pointed thorns 

 (much as in Myrmica ruginodis), which rise gradually above the 

 level of the rest of the seutellum, commencing at its base, and 

 extend far beyond it in the apical direction. Their whole length 

 is about two thirds that of the tegulaa, and of this length about 

 one half projects over the postscutellum etc., the other half 

 forming a lateral border to the seutellum itself. The propodeum 

 has a short costate sulcature along its basal margin; its "area 

 trigona" is not definitely separated from the lateral areas except 

 by being perfectly smooth and very shining, while they are 

 strongly and closely punctured throughout. The mesopleura? are 

 somewhat rugosely punctured and the metapleurae show a fine 



