Soulh American Wasp which collects Honey. 319 



stinguishable: the solid wall of the nest at top is about a quarter 

 of an inch in thickness. The nest is nearly sixteen inches 

 long : the broadest part, which is on the same line with the 

 orifices, is more than a foot long ; the narrowest point is nine 

 or ten inches. At the base, an imaginary straight line, drawn 

 from the orifices to the opposite side, would be nearly a foot 

 long. It would seem as if the nest was complete ; indeed, un- 

 less the insects had the power of redissolving the matter at 

 the base, or the inclination to gnaw it off, I cannot see how 

 they could make additions to it. 



Many of the uppermost combs have the cells, in the middle, 

 filled with a brownish red honey, which, in its present state, 

 possesses scarcely any smell or taste. The occurrence of 

 honey in the combs is interesting, inasmuch as it still further 

 confirms the accuracy of Azara's observation, and is made 

 by a Vespidous insect having the first joint of the abdomen 

 elongated into a pedicel. 



Azara, in the account of his residence in various parts of 

 South America, mentioned the fact of several wasps of these 

 countries collecting honey. The Baron Walckenaer, who 

 edited the French translation of this work, published in 1809*, 

 thought that the Spanish traveller, who was unskilled in en- 

 tomology, had made some mistake with regard to the insects, 

 and regarded the so-called wasps as belonging to some bee of 

 the genus, of which the Apis amalthea is the type {Melipona.) 

 Latreille also believed that they must be referred to the ge- 

 nera Melipona or Trigona, insects which, in South America, 

 take the place of our honey-bee. These authors were after- 

 wards clearly convinced of the correctness of Azara's obsei-va- 

 tions, by the circumstance of M. Auguste de St. Hilairef find- 

 ing near the river Uruguay, an oval grey-coloured nest of a 

 papery consistence, like that of the European wasps, suspended 

 from the branches of a small shrub about a foot from the 

 ground. He and two other attendants partook of some honey, 

 and found it of an agreeable sweetness, free from the phar- 

 maceutic taste which so frequently accompanies European 

 honey. He gives a detailed account of its poisonous effects 

 on himself and his two men, in the paper referred to. A. de 

 Saint Hilaire afterioards procured specimens of the insect, 

 which was described by Latreille | under the name oi Polistes 

 Lecheguana. 



* Vo3'ages dans I'Amer. Merid., i. p. 165, note. 



f Memoires du Museum, xii. p. 293, etc. ; see also Ann. des Sc. (1824), 

 iv. p. 335, etc. 



X Mem. du Mus., xi. p. 13; xii. pi. 12. fig. B. Mr. Shuckard says 

 (Lardn. Cab. Cycl., Ins., p. 183) Brachygastra analls of Perty (del Anim., 

 etc., p. 146. tab. 28. f. 6.) is synonymous, and on comparing descriptions I 



