Manchester Memoirs, Vol xlii (1898), No. 1, 



I, Notes on a Collection of Hymenoptera from Grey- 

 mouth, New Zealand, with descriptions of New 

 Species. 



By Peter Cameeon. 



{Communicated by J. Cosmo Melvill^ M.A., F.L.S.] 



Received October 12th. Read October igth, iSg'j. 



The species of Hymenoptera enumerated and described 

 in this paper were collected in the vicinity of Greymouth, 

 New Zealand, by the late Mr. Richard Helms, whose 

 assiduous labours have added so much to our knowledge 

 of the Insect Fauna of New Zealand, and who, after his 

 departure therefrom, did equally good work in investiga- 

 ting the Natural History of Australia. 



Our earliest information on the Hymenoptera we owe 

 to Fabricius, whose types are now in the Banksian Cabinet 

 in the British Museum ; then, at a long interval, followed 

 Francis Walker, who described some Chalcididcs collected 

 by Darwin during the memorable voyage of the " Beagle," 

 in his " Monographia Chalciditum," 1839; F. Smith, in 

 his Catalogue of Hymenoptera in the British Museum ; 

 and Mayr and Sichel in "Reiseder Novara," 1867. Then 

 in 1876 came F. Smith's important papers, " Descriptions 

 of New Species of Hymenopterous Insects of New Zea- 

 land, collected by C. M. Wakefield, Esq., principally in the 

 neighbourhood of Canterbury" {Trans. Entom. Soc. 1876, 

 pp. 473-487) ; " Descriptions of Three New Species of 

 Hymenoptera {Formicidos) from New Zealand," l.c, pp. 489- 



February 4th, i8g8. 



