2678 Insects. 



concealing the catkins of the alder, to which the flies were attached, consisted entirely 

 of females. It is greatly to be regretted that good drawings were not made of the 

 larvae, so little being known of many insects in that stage of their existence ; and, 

 from the slight description given, it appears to me not quite certain whether the eggs 

 had been laid by the Atherix or some Neuropterous insect. — John Curtis ; 18, Belitha 

 Villas, Bamsbury Park, December, 1849. 



[It is many years ago — in fact in 1833 — that I was first attracted to the vast 

 clusters of Atherix Ibis, which occur under bridges and on twigs of half-submerged 

 willows, in the district of Leominster, in Herefordshire : these clusters were generally 

 purse-shaped, and contained many thousands of this fly, the whole of them females : 

 nearly all were dead, but a few on the outside of each cluster still retained life ; and 

 on carefully watching one of these clusters, I found that it continually received acces- 

 sions by new comers settling upon it Year after year I have renewed this observa- 

 tion, but I believe I have never before published anything on the subject, always 

 deferring it in the hope that I might acquire a better knowledge of the object of such 

 extraordinary associations. — Edward Newman."] 



On the Abundance or Scarcity of the Wasp. — The Rev. Mr. Bree's communication 

 (Zool. 2614) has naturally induced me to reflect upon the circumstances dwelt upon 

 in his paper, namely, the scarcity or abundance of the common wasp : it were 

 a remarkable fact in the history of insects that the abundance of parents naturally 

 resulted in a scarcity of offspring, and vice versd. That such results may happen I 

 am quite willing to believe, but that such is an undeviating result my own experience 

 does not incline me to believe. Of all Hymenopterous insects in this country, there 

 is perhaps no aculeate species more subject to the " skyey influences" than the com- 

 mon wasp, and hence — without being exposed to a succession of cold or wet — a 

 frosty night or two were quite sufficient to thin their numbers : and another and very 

 important circumstance has not been noticed by Mr. Bree ; I allude to impregnation. 

 It is a well-known and established fact, that the large wasps, which first appear in 

 spring, are females of a former season : these insects, on the approach of cold weather 

 at the latter end of autumn, seek out some nidus in which to sleep during the winter : 

 some pass the inclement season in the nest, and, if the situation is one which secures 

 them from the effects of wet, I doubt not very securely. A fortnight ago a friend of 

 mine dug out a nest, in the upper combs of which he found a number of females 

 nestled together ; others, leaving the nest, find safe retreats in holes in walls, trees, 

 &c. The hornet burrows frequently into the decayed heart of trees, and there finds 

 a suitable hybernaculum. Numbers of wasps and also hornets are found in turf- 

 stacks, in Hampshire, where turf is piled up for winter fuel. Now, although large 

 numbers pass the winter in such situations, is it not reasonably to be supposed that 

 many of these may appear the following spring, and yet produce no brood, from want 

 of impregnation ? Such we know obtains to a great degree in Lepidoptera; such re- 

 cords have appeared in the pages of the ' Zoologist,' applying to the death's-head 

 moth, &c. Now, should the autumn be cold and wet, with any considerable amount 

 of frost, not only will large numbers perish (more particularly of the male sex), but 

 impregnation must be materially prevented. Mr. Bree's record of an abundant flight 

 of wasps, during the autumn of the present year, proves to my mind how greatly these 

 insects are subject to the influences which I have pointed out. Last year wasps 

 abounded in the neighbourhood of Hampstead, as they did also in the spring of that 

 season ; but this year, although I have visited the Heath once or twice every week, 



