no YORKSHIRE HYMENOPTERA IN 1879, 1880 AND 1881. 



Tribe DIPLOPTERA— Wasps. 



Odynerus spinipes (L.) Holgate, 1881 (Wilson). 

 O. parietum ( L.) Two fine examples captured in rose- 

 house, Holgate, 1 88 1 (Wilson). 

 Vespa crabro L. 



With reference to my remarks at pages 49 and 50 of the 

 present volume, Mr. Robert Cook, writing to me under date of 

 Feb. loth, 1879, assured me that there was no mistake on his 

 part in the record of the capture of the hornet, neither can he 

 believe that there was any on the part of his friend (Mr. Crick) 

 who brought the specimen to him, when alive, in a paper box, out 

 of which Mr. Cook turned it into an insect net, killed, pinned and 

 set it himself His friend was not an entomologist and therefore 

 could have had no interest in making a false statement. His 

 statement of the capture was of its 'hovering about some bee- 

 hives' which he had in a small garden behind the house he then 

 occupied in Bishophill in the city of York. Mr. Cook had only 

 become acquainted with him two or three weeks before (entirely 

 by chance) they being both collectors of coins. Mr. Cook adds 

 that had he been at the time as ardent a collector of Hymenoptera 

 as he was of Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and old coins, he would no 

 doubt have visited Mr. Crick's garden with the view of securing 

 if possible specimens himself. 



There never was any reason to doubt the genuineness of the 

 occurrence spoken of by Mr. Cook, but his explanation reveals 

 the fact that there was but a single specimen of the hornet, and 

 that it was hovering about bee-hives. Thus an opening is made 

 for a reasonable surmise that the single specimen was an accidental 

 straggler. I saw three specimens in Mr. Cook's collection, all of 

 them undoubtedly Vespa crabro (Roebuck). 



V. norvegica Fab. 



The Rev. W. W. Fowler records that on the nth August, 

 1 88 1, while he was collecting beetles on umbelliferous plants at 

 Stamford Bridge near York, he captured a specimen of this wasp 

 (E.M.M., March 1881, xvii. 237). 



Trans.Y.N.U., 1S80 (pub. 18S2). Series D 



