AUGUST. 
279 
F. — A fine male Sirex^ with red abdomen ( Trernex Co- 
lumba ) I met with in the woods a few days since ; I also 
saw a winged specimen of the Great Ant of Newfoundland 
Formica Pubescens ?), and the Falcate Crane-fly {Pedicia 
?) so common in that country. It is rare here. 
C, — Are the insects which are resting on this potato 
plant, wasps ? 
F. — No ; if you examine them closely, you will see that 
they are Lepidoptera, unlike as they appear. They are a 
small species of Sphinx, the Yellow-Belted Hawk-moth. 
(^JEgeria ?) I have myself often mistaken them for 
wasps, as the resemblance is very striking ; the alternate 
black and yellow belts of the abdomen, the shape, the mode 
of holding the wings horizontally extended at an acute angle 
with the body, are decidedly waspish. These I have taken 
in some numbers, chiefly on the willow and the potato ; 
and two other species somewhat resembling them, I have 
met with, but very rarely (but one specimen of each) ; the 
White-Belted and the Gold-Belted Hawk-moth, the latter 
larger, and much brighter, and 
more beautiful. I am not cer- 
tain, however, that these two 
may not be varieties of the first- 
named. The Gold-belted laid 
in my box a great many shin- 
ing, kidney-shaped, dark red 
eggs. The economy of this di- gold-belted hawk-moth. 
vision of the Sphinxes is pecu- (Mgeria 1) 
liar ; the caterpillars are whitish, and usually feed on the 
pith and wood of trees or shrubs, emerging into daylight 
only as the perfected moth. They are often destructive to 
fruit trees, by their insidious and hidden attacks. 
C. — I have just turned up a stone, and found under it a 
small, pale- reddish Lizard, which moves slowly ; there is 
