158 SHUCKARD ON THE 



genera, which do not interlink so closely as to require a 

 detailed examination of the oral oi-gans. The British ento- 

 mologist may, therefore, take for granted, that sufficient 

 differences exist, besides those given, to warrant retaining the 

 genera already established. 



Genus I. — Cleptes, Latr. 



Head transverse, as wide as the mesothorax : antennae with thirteen 

 joints in both sexes : prothorax subquadrate, somewhat narrowed 

 in front : metathorax truncated, and produced on each side into 

 an acute spine : legs moderate : superior wings with a closed 

 marginal cell, the radial a nervure being rounded ; the cubital 

 nervure is obsolete just beyond the first recurrent, but the space 

 it leaves for the submarginal cells is unusually wide ; the first 

 and second discoidal cells complete, small, the latter oblong- 

 quadrate ; the first apical cell almost complete, but the subdis- 

 coidal nervure does not quite extend to the apex of the wing : 

 abdomen ovato-conical, with five segments in the male, and in 

 the female four, with a protruded ovipositor. 



In general habit, the insects of this genus approach closely 

 to the aculeate genera Meria, Plesict, and Tiphia, but their 

 retractile ovipositor, parasitic habits, and metallic colours, 

 necessarily bring them into the present family. They cannot, 

 from the structure of the abdomen, roll themselves up, like the 

 other species of the family, upon the approach of danger. 



Sp. 1. CI. semiaurata. 



Latr. Hist. Nat. T. XIII. 236. 1. Nouv. Diet. VII. 

 190. Fab. Piez. 154. 1. Le Pelet. Ann. du Mus. 

 T. VII. 119. 1. 

 Sphex semiaurata . . Linn. Fn. Suec. 1661. Systema, 



Ed. 12. 946. 35. 

 Chrysis semiaurata. . Fab. S. E. 357. 14. Sp. 457. 17. 

 Oliv. Ency. Met/i. Ins. II. 676.21. 



a For an explanation of the terms I use in the description of the nervures of 

 the superior wings, I must refer to my Essay on the Indigenous Fossorial 

 Hymenoptera, p. 17, and the illustrative plate ; and also to a Paper on the 

 Neuration of the Superior Wings of the Hymenoptera in general, where they are 

 treated in greater detail, which will appear in Part III. of the Transactions of 

 the Entomological Society. 



