Fossores. ^INSECTS. Mutillid^. 185 
basin of vinegar. As far as Mr. Savage observed, 
fresh meat of all kinds, and fresh oils, are their favourite 
food. In the cupboards they touch not milk or sugar 
and pastry. 
Group — FOSSOBES. 
The tribe Fossores is so called from the digging 
or burrowing habits of most of the insects composing 
it. The insects of this tribe are of two sexes, which 
are both furnished with wings. The legs of the females 
are usually adapted for burrowing, and are never fitted, 
as in the bees, for collecting pollen. The hind tarsi 
have the first joint as narrow as the following ones. 
The collar is sometimes prolonged on each side, as far 
as the insertion of the first pair of wings. 
Family — SCOLIAD^®. 
In this family the females have the legs generally 
very strong and thickly spinose, or densely ciliated ; the 
femora are arcuated at the extremity, and compressed ; 
the antenn® are stout, and shorter than the thorax. 
In the typical genus {ScoUa) the eyes are notched. 
Scolia quadrimaculata is figured on Plate 7 , fig. 9. 
the group ; there is a large splash of reddish-yellow on 
the upper wing. 
The cocoa palms of Madagascar are destroyed by the 
grub of a large blackish-brown beetle, thicker than 
your thumb, and about half its length. The grub is 
yellowish-white, with a darker hind part and brown 
head. Groves of cocoa-nut trees that were planted at 
Saint Marie, and for a hundred years brought in great 
revenue to France, have been destroyed by the larva of 
this beetle — Oryctes Simiar is its name. Two other 
species are found in Madagascar and elsewhere, which, 
when they abound, do great mischief to date palms 
{Pkmnix dactyliferd) and other palms, such as the 
Oreodoxa oleracea^ all figured in the great hook of 
Martius. 
The trunks are attacked by the insect, which eats 
large holes, and these holes let in air and water, and 
other things destructive to vegetable growths. The 
larva of the Scolia here figured (fig. 58) attacks and eats 
these larva. It is very sluggish, hut does its work 
admirably. It has twelve segments ; each ring is 
furnished with stigmata, except the last. Its cocoon is 
very thick. These insects appear to have the same 
habits in all parts of the world, for instance Passeriui’s 
Scolia flavifrons preys on Oryctes nasicornis in Europe, 
as has been observed at Florence. 
Fig. 57. 
Scolia oryctophaga. 
The Scolia here figured, with its larva (see figs. 57 
and 58), W'as described by Mons. Ch. Coquerel,* who 
named it Oryctophaga (Eater of the beetle Oryctes). 
Fig. 58. 
Larva of Scolia oryctophaga. 
It is a native of Madagascar, a fine black fellow, with 
purplish iridescence on its wings, like many others of 
* Annales de la Society Entom. de France, third series, 
vol. iii., Plate 10, fig. 2; 1855. 
Von. 11. 8o 
Family— SAPYGID.as. 
) In this family the legs are without spines; the 
'' antennae are elongated, and usually more or less 
clubbed ; the eyes are notched. Two species are 
described as British ; one species {Sapyga punctata) is 
met with about the end of May running on palings and 
rails, apparently looking out for the burrows of wood- 
boring bees. They store up the larvae of Lepidoptera 
for their young brood. The larva spins a tough brown 
cocoon, in which it passes its pupa state. It has been 
known to use snail shells instead of making a burrow. 
Family — MUTILLID.^ {Velvet Ants), 
These insects may be described as solitary ants. 
There are two sexes, male and female. The males are 
winged, the females are apterous. The legs of the 
females are stout, and fitted for burrowing; the tibise 
are spinose; the tarsi are ciliated; the antenna are 
filiform or setaceous. In the males the last segment 
of the abdomen is usually furnished with teeth or spines. 
The Mutillida are met with in all countries. One 
was brought by Sir John Richardson from the Great 
Bear Lake in North America {M.frigida). We figure 
the Mutilla coccinea — (Plate 7, fig. 5). In the warmer 
regions of the world they abound, and some of the 
South American species are of considerable size, and 
have terrible stings. 
MUTILLA ETJE0P.fflA. — Mr. Drewsen, in the Stettin 
Journal for 1847, has given an account of the habits of 
this species, which is met with in this country. This 
Danish naturalist took a nest of that humble bee known 
as the Bomhus Scrimshiranus ; in it he found only two 
worker bees, hut as many as seventy-six specimens of 
Mutilla Europcea, of which forty-four were males and 
