On the Biology of the Social Wasps of Brazil. 133 



Tomaspis appears to be a tropical and subtropical genus 

 only. I never met with it in any of my collecting expedi- 

 tions in the Transvaal. Delagoa Bay at present is its 

 recorded southern limit; but probably it may be found in 

 Durban, where much is still to be done, apart from Lepido- 

 ptera, and where other species only previously known in 

 Mozambique have been discovered. 



XII. — A Contribution to the Biology of the Social Wasps 

 of Brazil. By H. VON Ihering *. 



It is nowadays very difficult and — particularly in cases 

 where special attention has to be paid to the literature of 

 extra-European countries — barely possible to guarantee full 

 cognizance of all that has been written upon a biological 

 theme. Consequently something may have escaped my 

 notice even in respect of the subject about to be discussed, 

 although, on the whole, the statements in the following paper 

 will probably be new to ray scientific colleagues. 



On studying the various special memoirs or the descriptions 

 in handbooks &c., we invariably find that the account of the 

 life of the social wasps is altogether European, based exclu- 

 sively upon the facts to be observed in Europe and in the 

 holarctic region in general. In order to make myself intelli- 

 gible upon this point, let me briefly refer to what is gene- 

 rally known. The social life of the European wasps is 

 eminently adapted to the harsh climate of Europe. There 

 are in Europe, so far as is at present known, no wasp- 

 communities that hibernate regularly, though even as to this 

 I must nevertheless be allowed to entertain doubts with 

 regard to the extreme south of Europe, especially with refer- 

 ence to Polistes. In autumn the community separates, the 

 workers and males perisli, while the fertilized females alone 

 hibernate and commence the foundation of a new colony in 

 the spring. 



How utterly different is the case here ! Even Polistes, 

 the single genus of social wasps common to Europe and 

 Brazil, behaves somewhat differently. Here, too, it is the 

 rule for the community to be dissolved in winter ; but never- 

 theless in July, therefore in mid-winter, we meet with colonies 

 of Polistes versicolor, Fabr., still surviving and continuing to 



* Translated by E. E. Austen from the ' Zoologischer Anzeiger,' 

 Bd. xix. no. 516 (November 2, 1896), pp. 449-453. 



