HYMENCEA HYMENOPTERA. 



of shapeless lumps, but the greater portion of very 

 thin semi-transparent lamella?, or rather shavings. I 

 now examined it every day till the fifth, when I found 

 it had emerged through the central buds at about an 

 inch from where it had first commenced." This spe- 

 cies is about one-sixth of an inch long, of a black 

 colour, with the elytra finely punctured in lines ; it 

 varies to a pale dirty buff or red colour, probably 

 owing to immaturity. There are numerous other 

 species of this genus, eight being inhabitants of this 

 country. 



HYMENCEA (Linnaeus). A genus of plants, called 

 from its having united leaves. They are the locust 

 trees of English travellers, and found in tropical 

 America and Madagascar. The flowers are decan- 

 drious, and of course belong to the natural order 

 LeguminoscB. The pods of H. courbaril contain a soft 

 filamentose substance as sweet as honey, and having 

 an aromatic flavour something resembling gingerbread. 

 The Indians are extremely fond of the fruit, and the 

 monkies, as well as the children, devour it with 

 avidity. The gum known in commerce as gum animi 

 is extracted from several of the species. The heart- 

 wood of the courbaril is very hard and tough, and is 

 hence much valued for wheel work, particularly for 

 cogs. It will take a fine polish, and is so heavy that 

 a cubic foot weighs about one hundred pounds. It 

 is called " mountain ebony." In our stove collections 

 the plants are grown in loam and moor-earth, and 

 increased by cuttings. 



HYMENOPTERA. An order of insects be- 

 longing to the great division Mandibulata, or those 

 furnished with lateral jaws, and distinguished by 

 having four membranous wings, furnished with various 

 veins, forming cells, but not assuming the appearance 

 of net work, the posterior pairj being smaller than 

 the anterior ; the mouth composed of a pair of 

 upper and lower jaws, and two lips, the lower of 

 which is elongated, and forms, together with the 

 lower jaws, a kind of tongue or sucker, capable of 

 being extended to a considerable length, and employed 

 in collecting honey from flowers ; the females are 

 furnished with a horny apparatus, at the extremity of 

 the body, which in some species is transformed into 

 a pair of saws, adapted for making slits in twigs of 

 plants, for the reception of the eggs, and in the 

 others consisting of a powerful sting, the structure of 

 which we have already described in our article upon 

 the bee. In others again, it is elongated into an 

 ovipositor, adapted for depositing the eggs in the 

 bodies of caterpillars, &c. The head is furnished, 

 moreover, with a pair of antenna?, which in the typ- 

 ical division, consist of thirteen joints in the males, 

 and twelve in the females ; in the rest the number of 

 the joints varies in the greatest degree, in some con- 

 sisting of only five or six, and in others of sixty or 

 seventy articulations. In the form of these organs 

 we also find great variation, the sexes differing in this 

 respect, in some being long and slender, in others 

 short and clubbed ; in some furnished with hairs, in 

 others branched or forked, and in the majority 

 elbowed at the extremity of the basal joint, which is 

 ordinarily long. The eyes are large, and occupy the 

 sides of the head ; they are alike in both sexes, except 

 in a very few instances, in which they are united in 

 the males on the crown of the head, as in some of 

 the diptera, they are generally round or oval, whilst 

 in some, as the wasps, they are kidney shaped. They 

 are asserted to be obsolete in a few species of ants. 



813 



In addition to these composite eyes, the majority of 

 the insects of this order are furnished with three mi- 

 nute simple eyelets (ocelli), on the crown of the head ; 

 the lower jaw and lip are furnished with palpi, which 

 vary in the number of their joints from six to one. 

 The thoracic segments are united into an oval 

 mass, in the front of which is to be observed an 

 arched piece, termed the collar ; and at the sides are 

 attached the two pairs of wings, the anterior pair 

 having a scale (squamula) at the base. The front 

 margin of the anterior wings is furnished, a little be- 

 yond the centre, with a callous point, termed the 

 stigma, c, from which is emitted a vein or nerve, which 

 runs to the tip of the wing, the space between it and 

 the front margin of the wings forming one or two 

 cells, which are termed the marginal or radial cells, , 

 behind this nerve, and running somewhat parallel with 

 it, is another nerve connected with the former by various 

 short transverse nerves, the space between which 

 forms the submarginal or cubital cells, bbbb, varying 

 in number from one to four ; there are other nerves 

 forming basal and discoidal cells, but the former are 

 of the greatest importance, being employed as afford- 

 ing constant characters in the discrimination of genera. 

 There is, perhaps, nothing more strikingly calculated 

 to prove the beautiful order and certainty existing 

 throughout nature, than is exhibited by these slender 

 and apparently trivial nerves, which maintain their 

 position in every individual of a given species, 

 although in the adjacent species the situation of some 

 one or other of them may be altered. Of such im- 

 portance, however, is the consideration of these nerve% 

 that in the latest work upon the Hymenoptera (St. 

 Fargeau, Hist. Nat. des Ins. Hymenopt. Paris, 1836.) 

 we find upwards of five and twenty pages devoted to 

 their illustration. We have here represented the an- 



terior wing of gorytes, in which we have a number of 

 cells ; but in some groups the number of the nerves is 

 greatly diminished, and in few, as the Chalcididse and 

 Proctotrupidse, the nerves are almost, and even abso- 

 lutely and entirely, obliterated. In many of these in- 

 sects, a remarkable apparatus exists, whereby the two 

 wings on each side are kept steady together in flight, 

 consisting of a series of very minute hooks or crotchets 

 discoverable under a good magnifier on the anterior 

 margin of the posterior wings. They have been 

 noticed by no other authors than De Geer 

 and Kirby, the latter of whom observes, that they 

 are much more conspicuous in the bees than in the 

 winged ants. The legs, which are six in number, are 

 inserted on the lower side of the thorax, and consist 

 of various pieces, which contribute to their movements. 

 These pieces are the coxa, a short piece connecting 

 the leg with the thorax, trochantcr, another short 

 piece articulated between the coxa and the following 

 piece, and which in the ichneumonidse, is divided 

 into two parts ; the femur, or thigh, which is long and 



