Pomptlius punctum and other Hymenoptera. 43 



Their choice of situation is varied ; a decayed post, a bramble 

 stick, or a bank of light earth ; in the latter situation I once dis- 

 covered a complete colony. The prey of all the British species of 

 this genus is spiders.* 



Pemplncdon, and all the species of D'tndontus, provision their 

 own nests, as well as the insects forming the genus Passalce- 

 cus; most of these species prey upon Aphides. I shall pass 

 over the various species of bees, remarked upon by Shuckard, as 

 I intend to enter upon the subject at some length in a Monograph 

 on the r)ritish Ap'idcc. I would, in conclusion, however, make a 

 few remarks upcin the solitary wasps, which have their tar.vi and 

 tibiae destitute of spines and cilia. Odyncrus parictum is an insect 

 very variable in its habits. "j- I have repeatedly obtained its nests, 

 having found its cells formed in an excavated bramble-stick, 

 which was lined with a thin layer of mud or agglutinated sand; 

 at another time it chooses a decayed rail or board ; then again a 

 hole in the mortar of a wall ; and on one occasion, in an old 

 lumber room of an outhouse, I found several cells placed longi- 

 tudinally in a lady's fan, which lay half open upon a shelf. These 

 variations in situation induce me to believe that it seldom, if ever, 

 forms its own burrow ; but, like most of the insects of the tribe 

 destitute of the usual fossorial appendages, it constructs its celts 

 in any suitable situation prepared and adapted to its purpose. I 

 have frequently observed insects similarly constructed to the P. 

 punctum, &c. in the act of closing their burrows, but I never de- 

 tected one in the act of excavating. Mr. Shuckard, in the notes 

 appended to his paper on these insects, mentions the fact of these 

 insects closing the entrance to their burrows, and follows this up 

 by an observation, that their eggs are speedily hatched, and that 

 they change into a pupa before the winter, in which state they lie 

 dormant until the following spring. This is an incorrect suppo- 

 sition ; observation has led me to believe that no Hymenopterous 

 insect passes the winter months in the pupa state ; a change from 

 that to the perfect state either takes place, or they remain as 

 larvae until the return of spring. I tried the experiment of freez- 

 ing the larva of Anthophora Haworihann, and, on the return of 

 spring, the larvae which had been frozen so hard that I could 

 snap them in two, were amongst the first to change to the pupa 

 state, and so on to perfect insects. 



• Vide Kennedy in Lon. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. Jan. 1837, p. 16. 

 t Ibid. p. 18. 



