CLASSIFICATION OF THE SPECIES. 43 
enclosmg a diamond-shaped space, similar to what 
we find so strongly marked in one variety of V. rufa. 
I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. F. Smith on 
this as on so many other occasions, for the oppor- 
tunity of completing this series of illustrations from 
his specimens of the male and worker of this rare 
species. It will be seen, from the drawings, that the 
markings of the male differ little from those of the 
perfect female. In the worker the distinctions are 
more marked, the central spots or buttons on the 
abdominal scales being drawn out, as it were, into 
angular cusps, somewhat in the way that we shall 
find those of the worker of V. rufa to be. 
Turning now to the ground-wasps: 
V. germanica, Plate IL, in the person of the queen, 
attams perhaps a larger size than any other of the 
small British wasps. She herself is at once distin- 
guishable from the queen of V. vulgaris, but the males 
and workers of these two species are not always 
easy to be known apart. The clypeus has three 
black spots, but the middle one often exceeds the 
rest in size, descending from the top of the clypeus 
as a broad black line. Instead of her having only a 
narrow edging to the lower limb of the compound 
eyes, nearly the whole space between the limbs is 
filled in with yellow. The corona seems to spread 
out into two horns, the upper edge being widely 
hollowed out; the sides descend straight, slightly 
converging; and the lower edge is concave, with 
a central angular notch. 
The thorax presents four yellow spots, two on 
either side of the metathorax, the hinder pair being 
