264 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



DESCRIPTION. 



? 



Body black, variegated with yellow. Head and trunk thickly clothed with long woolly down of 

 a grayish colour ; face with three yellow spots placed in a transverse line behind the antenna?, the 

 two lateral ones subtriangular, the intermediate one subquadrangular, with a reddish cloud on its 

 disk ; the nose below the antenna? is yellow, inclining to red round the margin ; it has also three 

 black dots placed in a triangle in the disk, the two lower ones being very minute; the vertex of the 

 nose is also black ; the mandibles are yellow with black tips; on the outside the orbit of the eyes is 

 reddish-yellow : the trunk is black underneath ; above the posterior upper margin of the collar, the 

 tegula? which cover the base of the wings, and a triangular spot underneath them, are yellow; on 

 the metathorax and scutellum are six yellow spots placed in a double series, the upper and lower 

 pairs being subtriangular, and the intermediate pair crescent-shaped : the thighs are black at the 

 base, but their apex, and the rest of the leg, and a small triangular spot on the inner side of the 

 four posterior trochanters, are yellow; the wings are yellowish red with red nervures : the abdomen, 

 except at the base, is less hairy than the rest of the body ; it is yellow with all the segments, 

 black at the base ; though the blackness in the terminal ones is chiefly concealed by the antecedent 

 segments; in all in the middle it projects into a triangle; the four intermediate ones have also each 

 a round-headed small black spot, the connection of which with the blackness of the base is inter- 

 rupted in the second segment ; on the under side of the abdomen the base of the segments is black, 

 and the intermediate ones have each a pair of rather crescent-shaped black spots not connected with 

 the blackness of the base. 



From this minute description, it will be seen that the American specimen which is very small, 

 differs in several respects from the European wasps of the common species, especially the spots on 

 the vertex, and the six, instead of four spots, on the scutellum and metathorax : but as it exhibits 

 nearly all the other characters ascribed by Linne to his V. vulgaris, I have judged it best, as there 

 was only a single specimen, to consider it as forming a variety rather than a species. I imagine 

 Aristotle's two species of wasp, one of which forms its nest in the oaks of the mountains, and the 

 other underground, are the Vespa crabro and vulgaris of Linne ; Pliny mentions his Vespce and 

 Crabrones, the former as building their nest on high, and the latter as selecting caverns and sub- 

 terraneous cavities ; whence it seems probable that the last is the real V. vulgaris. He mentions in 

 the same chapter Vespce which are called Ichneumo?ies, which carry spiders into their nest, from which 

 circumstance it seems probable that these belonged to the modern genus Pompilus or the Spider- 

 wasp. 



(365) 2. * Vespa borealis. Boreal Vespa. 



V. [borealis ) nigra, antennis subtus luteis, capite flavo, franco albido, maculatis ; femoribus apice, tibiis tarsisque jlavis ; abdo- 

 mine subcordato flavo, segmentis basi nigris, omnibus, primo excepto, puncto libero nigro. 



Boreal Wasp, black, antennae underneath luteous, head spotted with yellow and the trunk with white ; thighs at the tip and 

 rest of the leg yellow; abdomen rather heart-shaped, yellow, with the segments black at the base and each, 

 except the basal one, with two black discoidal dots. 



Length of the body 7 5 lines. 



A single specimen taken with the last. 



