ENTOMOLOGICAL CABINET. 



AMMOPHILA HIRSUTA. Kirbij. 



Sphex arenaria. Fabr. 



Hairy Sand Wasp. 



Head large, punctured and covered with black 

 hair : mandibles longer than the head : thorax and 

 breast black and hairy : wings the length of the 

 body slightly tinged with brown and darker towards 

 the apex ; veins of the wings ferruginous with the 

 costal edge fuscus : petiole of the abdomen short and 

 black ; abdomen with the second, third and the 

 base of the fourth ring of a deep reddish orange, 

 legs black. Length from 6£ to 8 lines. 



Inhabits hot sandy banks in June and July. 



In 1797, the Rev. Wm. Kirby gave to the Linnaean 

 society, which was published in the fourth volume of 

 their transactions, a monograph on the genus Am- 

 mophila ; the one now figured is rare, for we never 

 met with but one specimen, which was taken about 

 fourteen years since, on a sandy bank, near Lyming- 

 ton, Hampshire, in the month of July. 



Of the habits of the insects of this genus, the 

 following remarkable account is given by Ray. " On 

 the 22nd of June," says he, " in the year 1667, I 

 saw it dragging along a caterpillar three times larger 

 than itself, which, after it had carried the length of 

 fifteen feet and upwards, it deposited near the en- 

 trance of a hole which it had previously dug in the 

 earth. It then removed a little ball of earth, with 



