HYMENOPTERA. 951 
the superior wings. The middle of the anterior margin of the 
clypeus is emarginated and receives the labrum in the notch. 
_ Masaris, proper, 
Where the antenne are rather longer than the head and thorax, and 
have their first joint elongated, and the eighth forming an obconical 
club rounded at the end. The abdomen is long.* 
Cuieonites, Lat.—Masaris, Fab. Jur., 
Where the antennz are hardly longer than the head, and have their 
two first jomts much shorter than the third, and the eighth and 
following ones forming an almost globular body. The abdomen is 
hardly longer than the thorax. 
A species figured in the great work on Egypt appears to form an 
intermediate subgenus. 
The second tribe of the Diploptera, that of the Vespart™, is com- 
posed of the genus 
Vespa, Lin., 
Where the antenne always present thirteen distinct joints in the 
males, and terminate in an elongated, pointed, and sometimes, in the 
males, hooked extremity: they are always geniculate, at least in 
the females and neuters. The ligula is sometimes divided into four 
plumose filaments, and sometimes bilobate, with four glandular points 
at the end, one on each lateral lobe, and the remaining two on the 
intermediate one, which is larger, widened, and emarginated or bifid 
at its extremity. The mandibles are strong and dentated. The 
clypeus is large. Underneath the labrum is a little piece in the form 
of a ligula, analagous to that observed by Reaumur in the Bombi, and 
which M. Savigny styles the epipharnyx. With the exception of a 
very few species, the superior wings have three complete cubital 
cells. The females and neuters are armed with an extremely power- 
ful and venomous sting. Several of them form communities com- 
posed of the three sorts of individuals. 
The larvee are vermiform, destitute of feet, and enclosed separately 
in a cell, where they sometimes live on the bodies of Insects placed 
there by the mother at the time she deposited the egg, and sometimes 
on the nectar of flowers, juices of fruits, and animal matters, elabo- 
rated in the stomach of the mother or that of the neuters, who feed 
them daily. 
M. de Saint-Hilaire brought a species from the southern pro- 
vinces of Brazil, which amasses a considerable store of honey, 
that is sometimes poisonous, like that of our common Bee.} 
A first subgenus, 
Creramius, Lat. Alig, 
Which has been the subject of a Monograph by one of our most 
celerbated entomologists, Doctor Kliig, forms an exception to the 
* Lat., Gener. Crust. et Insect., IV, 144, 
+ Lat., Ibid., 144. 
+ Mem, du Mus. d’Hist. Nat, 
