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A CATALOGUE OF NEW WASPS AND BEES (FO.'^SORES, 



DIPLOPTERA AND ANTHOPIIILA) DESCRIBED FROM 



THE INDIAN REGION SINCE 1897. 



BY 



T. V. Ramakrishna Aiyae, BA., F.E.S., F.Z.S., 



Acting Government Entomologist, Madras Agricultural 

 College, Goimhatore (^8. India). 



More than seventeen years have gone by since the late Col. Bing- 

 ham brought out his excellent work on the wasps and bees of India as 

 one of the volumes of that very useful " Fauna of British India " 

 series. It is needless to state how considerably our knowledge of 

 the aculeate hymenoptera of the Indian region has increased since 

 1897. Steady collecting and interesting observations have been 

 made by workers in the different parts of the country and as a result 

 several species new to science and a good many forms new to the 

 region have been discovered in addition to a mass of literature that 

 has accumulated on the taxonomical and biological aspects of the 

 several already known forms. Unfortunately the descriptions of 

 new forms and the mass of valuable information regarding known 

 ones are all found scattered about in a host of different journals, 

 reports, periodicals, etc. Hundreds of papers have been published 

 on this group of insects and a good man}^ of them in foreign 

 languages. Until some one takes up the very difficult task of 

 publishing a new edition of Bingham's volume with all up-to-date 

 information, I am sure some difficulty will be felt by people working 

 9,t the group — especially beginners, to lay their hands easily at the 

 various references. In view of this fact I have made an attempt in 

 the following pages to catalogue the various references to new 

 species of Fossores, Diploptera, and Anthophila that have been 

 •described from the Indian region during the past sixteen years. In 

 doing so, although the chief aim has been to list all new species — as 

 •a supplementary list to the species described by Bingham, I have 

 also tried to include (a) references to a few forms already described 

 from the Indian region before 1897, but which have been omitted 

 by Bingham in his volume, and (b) all available references to 

 important papers published since 1897 containing notes of a biolo- 

 gical or taxonomical nature on the various Indian species of wasps 

 and bees. 



The original idea in preparing this catalogue was to have a 

 reference card index for private use ; but it struck me later that 

 the list, in spite of the several drawbacks it is bound to contain, 

 might, if published, be of some use to other workers in the same 

 field. Situated as I am far away from any large entomological 

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