384 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
the daily visit becomes a pleasure and a duty according to the 
usual laws of maternity. Of course the larvee of this species 
run great risks, for their cell remains unclosed, and carnivorous insects 
may enter in and destroy them. Moreover the mother may be taken 
and killed herself, and then as no food would be forthcoming they 
would die from starvation. There is no doubt that the habits of this 
species cast a light upon those of the insects which only provide one 
store of provisions and then close their nests ; for it is not difficult to 
imagine that if the egg of a former Bembex vidua, the predecessor of 
all these, should not happen to have hatched at the second visit of 
the mother, she would have closed the hole and left it uncared for, not _ 
seeing the use of troubling herself to no purpose.” . 
35. BEMBEX OVANS, n. sp. 
Hasirat: Tenasserim. 
Fumate: Length 22 m.m., expanse 34 m.m. 
Mate: Length 21 m.m., expanse 36 m.m. 
Description: 9. Head black, back of the head, vertex, upper por- 
tion of the face, cheeks and chin pubescent; labrum, mandibles, clypeus, 
a triangular mark above the clypeus, and the scape of the antennz 
chrome-yellow ; the tips of the mandibles, a spot on the scape, and the 
flagellum of the antennz above black, the under side of the flagellum 
and a broad streak behind the eyes not reaching the vertex fulvous, the 
clypeus convex, broader than long, the anterior border deeply emargi- 
nate in the centre, the sides vertical, a vertical short though well 
marked raised carina between the base of the antennze. Thorax black, 
finely pitted but shining, slightly pubescent, the pubescence on 
the metathorax long and soft ; the prothorax, the scutellum and_ post 
scutellum posteriorly margined with chrome-yellow, the metathorax 
posteriorly truncated, the sides produced into obtuse tubercles, these 
latter with a band above them running from the anterior angles of the 
metathorax and nearly meeting in the centre chrome-yellow ; sides 
of the thorax yellow, pectus black: wings hyaline, tegule yellow, 
nervures ferruginous-brown; legs and feet: yellow, the cox, trochanters 
and femora outwardly, and all the tibize on the underside, streaked with. 
black, apical joint of the tarsi and claws ferruginous-brown. Abdomen 
black, with, in certain lights, obscure purple reflections, finely but 
sparsely pitted and covered with minute recumbent black hairs; the Ist 
