Manchester Memoirs, Vclxlii. (1898), No. 1. 5 



in Australia and Tasmania — why this should be so it is 

 difficult to understand. The absence of PompilidcE in 

 Hawaii may be owing to the scarcity of spiders there : but 

 on this point I have no information. The absence of the 

 OdyneridcB in New Zealand cannot be owing to the 

 absence there of their food, for it is as common as, if not 

 more abundant than, it is in the Sandwich Islands. The 

 absence of Tachytes, &c., in the Hawaii Islands may be 

 caused by there being no crickets living there. 



The paucity of FormicidcB in species is remarkable. 

 All the species are endemic, two of the genera being 

 peculiar. I cannot, however, understand how, while in 

 the Sandwich Islands there are at least five ants of almost 

 world-wide distribution, e.g., Ponera contractu, Prenolepis 

 longicornis, Tetramorium guineense, none of them should 

 have been recorded from New Zealand, where one would 

 think the environment is eminently suitable and the 

 commercial intercourse with other regions even more 

 extensive. 



As respects the species added by Mr. Helms to the 

 Fauna, the most noteworthy are those belonging to the 

 genera Dicoelotus, Hemiteles, Chorinceus, Bassus, Ascogaster, 

 Meteorus, and Alysia, those genera not having been 

 previously recorded. Of the species, Ichneumon hersilia, 

 which differs markedly from the others in structure, is 

 perhaps the most interesting. 



TENTHREDINID^. 



No native species of this family is known ; but the 

 common European slug-worm of the pear {Blennocampa 

 adumbrata) has been introduced, and recorded by Captain 

 Hutton in his list as Blennocampa cerasi ; by Mr. F. Smith 

 {Trans. Entom.Soc.iZj^, p. 474) as Blennocampa adumbrata 

 Klug ; and it has been described by Mr. W. F. Kirby 

 {Trans. Entom. Soc, 1881, p. 50) as a new species under the 



