HYMENOPTERA. 251 



the superior wings. The middle of the anterior margin of the 

 clypeus is emarginated and receives the labrum in the notch, 



Masaris, proper, 

 Wliere the antennae are rather longer than the head and thorax, and 

 have their first joint elongated, and the eighth forming an obconical 

 club rounded at the end. The abdomen is long.* 



Cleonites, Lat. — Masaris, Fab. Jur., 

 Where the antennae are hardly longer than the head, and have their 

 two first joints much shorter than the third, and the eighth and 

 following ones forming an almost globular body. The abdomen is 

 liardly longer than the thorax.f 



A species figured in the great work on Egypt appears to form an 

 intermediate subgenus. 



The second tribe of the Diploptera, that of the Vespari^, is com- 

 posed of the genus 



Vespa, Lin., 



Where the antenna always present thirteen distinct joints in the 

 males, and terminate in an elongated, pointed, and sometimes, in the 

 males, hooked extremity : they are always geniculate, at least in 

 the females and neuters. The ligula is sometimes divided into four 

 plumose filaments, and sometimes bilobate, with four glandular points 

 at the end, one on each lateral lobe, and the remaining two on the 

 intermediate one, which is larger, widened, and emarginated or bifid 

 at its extremity. The mandibles are strong and dentated. The 

 clypeus is large. Underneath the labrum is a little piece in the form 

 of a ligula, analagous to that observed by Reaumur in the Bombi, and 

 which M. Savigny styles the epipharmjx. With the exception of a 

 very few species, the superior Avings have three complete cubital 

 cells. The females and neuters are armed with an extremely power- 

 ful and venomous sting. Several of them form communities com- 

 jjosed of the three sorts of individuals. 



The larvae are vermiform, destitute of feet, and enclosed separately 

 in a cell, where they sometimes live on the bodies of Insects placed 

 there by the mother at the time she deposited the e^o;, and sometimes 

 on the nectar of flowers, juices of fruits, and animal matters, elabo- 

 rated in the stomach of the mother or that of the neuters, who feed 

 them daily. 



M. de Saint-Hilaire brought a species from the southern pro- 

 vinces of Brazil, Avhich amasses a considerable store of honey, 

 that is sometimes poisonous, like that of our common Bee. J 

 A first subgenus, 



CERAmus, Lat. Kliig, 

 AVhich has been the subject of a Monograph by one of our most 

 celerbated entomologists, Doctor Kliig, forms an exception to the 



* Lat., Gener. Crust, et Insect., IV, 144. 



t Lat., Ibid., 144. 



1 Mem. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. 



