ACULEATE-HYMENOPTERA OF GUERXSEY. 349 



EumenidcB. The former is composed of social species and the 

 latter of solitary. The social species are those yellow wasps 

 so well known and dreaded by everybody, and include the 

 hornet, which happily is not a native of this island. The social 

 wasps, like the hive bees, live in societies, these communities 

 being divisible into three different classes, viz. — males, females 

 and workers. They make their nests of a kind of paper manu- 

 factured out of the masticated fibres of wood scraped by their 

 strong jaws from the outsides of weather-beaten posts or 

 rotten timber. The female only lives through the winter, and 

 in the spring commences to build a nest, either in the branches 

 of a tree or in a bank, and after making two or three layers of 

 cells, which are of the same general shape as that of the hive 

 bee, lays an egg in each. These eggs hatch and the larva? 

 feed up and come to maturity in about a month, producing 

 workers only at first, which, as they hatch out, help to increase 

 the size of the nest until it consists of thousands of cells. It 

 is fortunate for us that very few females escape the inclemen- 

 cies of winter, as one specimen may see at the close of the year 

 a family of between thirty and forty thousand descendants. 

 The only two Vespas I have taken here are both common 

 species. 



The Eumenidce, or solitary wasps, are narrow black insects 

 ornamented with yellow bands. They construct their cells of 

 mud and provision them with caterpillars. Of this family 

 two of our species are rare and local in England, viz. : Ody- 

 ncrus reniformis and O. pictits. The first-named has only 

 occurred near Cobham, Surrey, in two localities, and near 

 Virginia Water Station, about four miles from Cobham. 

 The latter is not so rare, but is very local. 



We now come to the Anthophila, a division embracing 

 the whole tribe of bees, most of which possess the faculty of 

 making honey, with which and the pollen collected from 

 flowers they feed their young during the larval state. The 

 Bees are divided into two sections, the Obtusilingues, bees 

 with the tongue short and obtuse, and the Acittilzngues, or 

 bees with tongues pointed and acute or elongate. Of the 

 former I have only taken one species, Prosopis liyalinata, so 

 that the greater portion of our bees belong to the Acutili agues. 



The first genus is Sphecodes, so named from the Greek 

 word signifying a was]), from their superficial resemblance to 

 some of the sand wasps. They are usually black and red in 

 colour. I have taken no less than six species here. Of one 

 Sphecodes subquadratus, Smith says " It is a rare species and 

 seldom met with." 



