39'^ ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [DeC, 'l8 



admirably arranged, with its geographic information supported by the 

 jjcrsonal knowledge of the Congo possessed by the author. 



The material collected by Messrs. Lang and Chapin on the Amer- 

 ican Museum Congo Expedition formed the basis of Dr. Bequaert"s 

 contribution. In other groups of insects the study of these collections 

 will supply equally important, and let us hope equally satisfactory and 

 comprehensive, works. The Lang-Chapin collection of Vespidae was 

 made in the Belgian Congo between June, 1909, and October, 1915, and 

 consisted of over 2700 specimens of the family, the most extensive col- 

 lection of that group ever made in the Ethiopian region. We are in- 

 formed the best series were from regions the wasp faunae of which 

 were practically unknown previous to that time, among these being the 

 Ituri forests and the savannahs of the northeastern Uele region. 



The collections studied contained representatives of 83 species and 24 

 'well marked color varieties," of which 21 species and 9 varieties are 

 described for the first time in this paper. Of the remaining 62 species 

 only 25 "had hitherto been found within the boundaries of the Belgian 

 Congo." To summarize, on the basis of the present paper, we now know 

 of loi species of Vespidae from the Belgian Congo, 21 of which are 

 here first described and yj first recorded from that territory. According 

 to Bequaert the Belgian Congo possesses "al)out one-fifth of the total 

 number of Vespidae described from the entire Ethiopian region." The 

 types of all the new species and varieties are deposited in the Amer- 

 ican Museum of Natural History. 



Certain features of the paper deserve having attention called to them, 

 l)Oth from their value in this paper and also their worth as models for 

 other authors. On page 7 is given a list of approximate locations of 

 places mentioned in the paper, with districts and latitude and longitude, 

 which is supplemented on page 9 by a map of the Congo Basin, show- 

 ing the localities mentioned and the limits of the West .\frican Rain 

 Forest. 



Under "Specific Characters in the Vespidae" we find an interesting 

 resume on the relative value of structural and color characters, which 

 is so presented that it applies to many groups of insects other than the 

 Vespidae. The summary given on page 1 1 is to our mind so clearly 

 stated and axiomatic we may be pardoned for quoting it. "The varia- 

 tion of the color markings is always much greater than that of the 

 structural characters. In manj' cases we find an almost constant struc- 

 tural type presenting numerous, different color varieties ; it seems evi- 

 dent that these color forms are genetically related : the color characters 

 may be more recent and therefore less stable, or they may be more 

 subject to modifications under the influence of external factors. At 

 any rate, they may be considered as different clothes worn by the same 

 morphological type, this type being of monophyletic origin. The prob- 

 lem becomes still more interesting when we note the occurrence of the 



