80 1 2 Insects. 



mathematical powers of these admirable little creatures ; but " truth 

 before all things" should be the maxim of the naturalist. 



Edwin Brown. 



Life- Histories of Saicjlies. Translated from'the Dutch of 

 M. Snellen van Vollenhoven, by J. W. May, Esq. 



(Continued from p. 7857.) 



CiMBEX Betdleti, Kivg. 



Imago. Hartig, Blatt-nnd Holzwespen, p. 70, No. 4. 



Larva. V. Volt, in Tijdschr. voor Nat. Gesch. en Physiol. 1843, 

 10th Vol. p. 97, under the name of C. Lucoruna. Westwood, 

 in Gardeners Chronicle, 1852, p. 68, b and c ; also under the 

 name of C. Lucorum. 



Cimbex nigra subnitida, rnfo-griseoque villosa, antennis nigris, 

 tibiarum apice, tarsisque luteis. 



In the year 1843 1 published a small contribution to the history of 

 the Hymenoptera, in the journal of Professors J. van der Hoeven and 

 W. H. de Vriese, under the title, " On the Larva of Cimbex Lucorum," 

 in which the same insect was described as I am now about to treat of 

 in this paper. It is certainly somewhat singular that Westwood should 

 also have described this same insect under the name of Lucorum : 

 we may conclude from this how very nearly allied the two species 

 are. I shall refer in the sequel to the specific distinctions between 

 the perfect insects, from which it will be seen that the difference is 

 indeed small. This change of names appears to have arisen from the 

 fact that neither Westwood nor i had sufficient confidence in DeGeer, 

 who, in the second volume of his ' Memoires' (page 232 of the Ger- 

 man translation), describes Cimbex Lucorum, although, it is true, 

 under the name of C. Amerinae, yet so accurately and dearly that 

 every hymenopterist cannot fail to recognize in his description the 

 perfect insect of C. Lucorum. It will be shown from later investiga- 

 tions, and especially the re- discovery of the larva of this last species, 

 which according to DeGeer lives on willows, that this author was not 

 mistaken in referring the larva to the perfect insect, but only in his 

 determination after Linneus, who was not acquainted with C. Be- 

 tuleli. 



The larvae of the larger species of Cimbex appear to resemble each 



