Clare Islam! Surrey, 



24 

 HYMENOPTERA. 



By CLAUDE MOELEY, F.Z.S., F.E.S., &c. 



Read Novembeu 13. Published December 7, 1911. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following list of Hymenoptera is the result of one visit to Clare Island and 

 the Louisburgh district by myself, and of a good deal of work in all parts of 

 the area — Clare Island, Achill Island, Curraun Achill, Mulranny, Louisburgh, 

 Belclare, and Westport, by other collectors, notably Bev. W. F. Johnson and 

 Mr. Halbert. My own work extended over a fortnight in the middle of July, 

 1910, the first week being spent at Louisburgh in company with Mr. Halbert, 

 and the second on the island with a large party, of whom Mr. B. E. Grimshaw, 

 who was investigating the Diptera, worked with me most of the time. The 

 weather during this visit was of the usual western type, with a good deal of 

 wind, some rain, and but little sun, not the best weather for the collecting of 

 Hymenoptera. The captures of Mr. Johnson, who, with his wife — also an 

 excellent collector — three times spent a month in the district, at dates ranging 

 from May to September, have added materially to the list. 



Our present knowledge of the Hymenoptera of Clare Island and its vicinity 

 goes to show that the district is, as regards its fauna, decidedly below the 

 average of a similar extent of land and sea in England, with which alone I 

 am able to compare it. Among the 32-1 species enumerated in the following 

 list are very few with claims upon our interest. I have looked somewhat 

 carefully through the local list, both of the species on Clare Island and on the 

 adjacent mainland, and there are recorded in it but twenty species that would 

 not with absolute certainty be found around any English village south of the 

 Huniber. The great feature of collecting on Clare Island that struck me 

 when there was the constant occurrence of insects I had only the week before 

 been netting in my own grounds and the adjoining woods in Suffolk ; here 

 were mountains of over 2000 feet, the sea-shores and geological formation 

 and climate were totally different, yet the fauna bore none of that individual 

 stamp one so confidently anticipated in so distinct a locality. The only 

 novelties I noticed were among the Trichoptera of the mountain streams. 

 K.I.A. PKOC, vol.. xxxi, A 2% 



