106 INSECTA. 
have the posterior thighs very large and lenticular, and their tibiz 
arcuated. 
Here the abdomen is ovoid or conical, pointed at its extremity, 
and pediculated; the ovipositor is straight and rarely salient or ex- 
ternal. The wings are extended. 
Some are known in which the antenne of the males are flabelli- 
form. 
Currocera, Lat.(1) 
Those of the others are simple in both sexes. 
Cuatcis, proper.—Vespa, Sphex, Lin. 
Some have the abdominal pedicle elongated; such are those found 
in marshes, and called sispes and clavipes by Fabricius. They are 
both black. The posterior thighs of the first are yellow; those of 
the second are fulvous. 
M. Dalman—Anal. Entom., p. 29—has formed the new genus 
Drirruinus, with an African species of this division, that is remarka- 
ble for its deeply bifid head, which, as well as the mandibles, is pro- 
longed anteriorly. 
Two other species, enclosed in amber, where the antenne suddenly 
terminate in a large ovoid and triarticulated club, and where the 
ovipositor is salient and as long as the body, seem to him to form a 
particular genus, which he calls Patmon. See his Memoir on the 
Insects inclosed in Amber, V, 21—24. 
In the others, the pedicle of the abdomen is very short. Such are 
C. minuta; vespa minuta, L. Very common on the flowers of 
umbelliferous plants; black, with yellow legs. 
C. annulata, Fab. Found in the nests of the Vespa nidulans 
of South America, and mistaken by Reaumur—Insect., VI, 
Xx, 2, and xxi, 3, 4—for the female of that Wasp. It is black; 
point of the abdomen elongated; a white dot at the extremity of 
the posterior thighs; tibia white, picked in with white(2). 
There, the abdomen seems as if applied to the posterior extre- 
mity of the metathorax, or as if sessile; it is rounded or very ob- 
tuse at the end, and compressed laterally. The ovipositor curves 
(1) Chaleis pecticornis, Lat., Gener. Crust. et Insect., 1V, 26. 
(2) See Lat., Gen. Crust. et Insect., IV, p. 25; Fab., Syst. Piez.; Oliv., Encyc. 
Méthod., article Chalcis. 
