NECTARINIA ANALIS. 267 



dark a colour. In texture, however, it is much slighter, being 

 very tliin and paper-like. These cells extend to the very edges 

 of the combs, of which there are fourteen in the present speci- 

 men. The length of the nest is sixteen inches, and its diameter 

 in the widest part is one foot. 



In the upper combs was discovered a quantity of honey, which, 

 when it was found, was hard and dry, of a deep brownish red, 

 and without either taste or scent. De Azara mentions that him- 

 self and some of his men ate the honey of the Myrapetra, and 

 that it was of a deleterious character. Another species of honey- 

 making wasp, Polistcs LicheguariM, a native of Brazil, was dis- 

 covered by M. St. Hilaire, who mentions that it lays up in the 

 nest a large provision of honey, which is very injurious to man- 

 kind, on account of the poisonous plants from which it is taken. 

 Polistes gallica also fiUs its cells with honey, which, however, 

 does not seem to be poisonous. 



Within the nest were found also the remains of insects. There 

 was the body of a black fly, which belongs or is allied to the 

 genus Bibio, and the remains of a neuropterous insect, which 

 apparently belongs to the genus Hemerohiiis. 



The Myrapetra itself is of variable size, the largest being about 

 four lines in length, and rather more than half an inch in expanse 

 of wing. It is of a dusky brown colour, and is remarkable for 

 having the first joint of the abdomen very much lengthened and 

 narrowed, so that it somewhat resembles the same organ in the 

 Pelopseus. 



At the left hand of the same illustration may be seen a rather 

 large globular nest, suspended from the boughs. This nest is 

 shown in the position which it usually occupies, namely, hidden 

 in the dark recesses of the Brazilian forest, amid the varied 

 vegetation which grows so profusely in the hot and wet parts of 

 the country which the insect frequents. 



The name of the species which makes this nest is Nedarinia 

 analis, a title which is significant and appropriate enough, but 

 which is rather unfortunate, inasmuch as it has already been 

 applied to a genus of birds, the weU-known honey-suckers of 

 Africa and India, which are so frequently mistaken for humming 

 birds, en account of their small size, their brilliant plumage, 

 their slender beaks, and their foTiduess for flowers. 



