l34 THE entomologist's record. 



(a) Gradual predominance of yellow over red-purple underside, 

 culminating in vars. isis, Hb., —altaica, Gr.-Gr. 



(1) An aberration of isis J , having upperside shot with a dull 



purplish tint, najmea, Hb. 



(2) A further isis aberration, less shot with purple, but with a 



broad band of united black spots across fore- and hind- 

 wings upperside, cinctata, Fav. 

 (6) Underside forewing with conspicuous black spots (wanting in 

 type), var, arsilache, Esp., =inducta, Spangberg. 

 (To be continued.) 



CURRENT NOTES AND SHORT NOTICES. 



The United States National Museum has recently published A 

 Revision of the Bembicine Wasps of America North of Mexico, by John 

 Bernard Parker. It consists of about 150 pages with 8 pages of 

 illustrative details and appears to be of more than usual interest. 

 " The Benibicini is a tribe of solitary wasps belonging to the group, 

 Fossores, or Digger Wasps. This tribe and the Stizini compose the 

 family Bembicidae. Among these wasps the individuals are either 

 male or female, and the latter constructs her nest alone and provides 

 for her offspring. These nests are burrows dug in the ground, usually 

 in sandy places, and, although each female constructs a burrow for 

 herself, the wasps generally nest in colonies, which may be made up of 

 several species. The most prominent characters distinguishing the 

 Bembicine wasps are (1) the non-folding wings lying flat on the back, 

 (2) the three closed cubital cells of the anterior wing, (3) of which cells 

 the second receives both discoidal cross veins, (4) the absence of a 

 prepectus, (5) the prominent exserted labrum, and (6) the lack of 

 developed ocelli." Preliminary paragraphs deal with the anatomy 

 sufficiently to follow the subsequent descriptions of species, which 

 descriptions are, in this contribution, much more comparative 

 than are those in many of the publications issued by the National 

 Museum. In fact every species herein described has one paragraph 

 or more devoted to a discussion of relationships with other species in 

 the genus. The group is divided into six genera, Steniolia, Stictia, 

 Stictiella, Bicyrtes, Bembix and Microbenibiv, each of which is intro- 

 duced by several pages of general remarks, together with an analytical 

 key to the species contained in it. At the end nearly 20 pages are 

 devoted to a summary of the work which has been done on the biology 

 of the various species, including not only that by previous workers, 

 such as Lapeletier, Fabre, and others, but much that has been done by 

 the prolonged observation and experiment of the author himself in the 

 haunts of several of the species. One of the most interesting questions 

 discussed is " How do these wasps find the entrance to their burrows? " 

 The results of the author's observations force him to conclude that 

 they do so through the sense of smell, or some power similar to smell. 

 The paper concludes with a bibliography. 



The Journal of Entomology and Zoology for the first quarter of 

 1917 contains contributions by the students and others working in the 

 Pomona College Department of Zoology, Claremont, California, U.S.A. 

 These are mainly biological notes on species met with in the 

 neighbourhood, of which hitherto very little has been known. This 



