DirLOPTEUA. INSECTS. Myrapetka, 
seen in other places ; and this 3 'ear their numbers, as 
well as that of all other insects, have been more than 
the last, arising probably from the stagnant waters left 
by the inundation. They are large and powerful 
insects, scarcely less than an inch long, and of bulk in 
proportion. The colour, a red-brown, and in parts 
yellow, and to me it seems a very disgusting insect. 
They are very thirsty creatures. They hang by hun- 
dreds round the filtering jugs, imbibing the moisture 
with infinite gusto. Their boldness, though less than 
that of the fly and the gnat, is more remarked and 
more unpleasing from their bulk. They have little 
scruple- to alight on your plate at dinner, and seizing 
what they can, make off with it. Sometimes I have 
seen them flying away with bits of meat nearly of their 
own size. They are also cannibals. 1 have found 
them falling to on the body of a companion recently 
killed, with little ceremony, which considerably dimin- 
ished the respect I had before entertained for their 
character as a set of brave and generous marauders. 
They are well armed. Their sting is fatal, I believe, 
to most insects, and is painful even to man. Our maid, 
a few days since, was stung by one, and her hand 
swelled enormously. I have not found, however, that 
they use this formidable weapon but when provoked. 
They live mostly in holes ; when they find one in a 
place to their liking, they excavate it farther to adapt 
it to their habitation, and they throw out a greater 
quantity of rubbish than would be easily credited. 
They once found a hole in my door, which they set 
about excavating ; but their continual passing out 
being very annoying, I closed up the hole ; though it 
was not perhaps right to block up thus from the light 
of the day those who then happened to be at home. 
After repeated trials, those who came home from ex- 
cursions at last relinquished the place.” 
This observing deaf traveller then proceeds to de- 
scribe in his own graphic way, how these wasps fall 
into the snares of certain spiders, which venture on 
them when caught in their webs, notwithstanding their 
sting. Kitto watched how their strength of wing often 
enabled the wasps to get out of the snare. But after 
flying to some standing place and cleaning himself from 
the relics of the webs, he has again got entangled, 
“ like many other fools with fewer legs and no wings, 
who will still sport with the dangers of which they have 
been fully warned, till they are destroyed at last.” He 
noticed that the spider inflicted two wounds, one in the 
neck and the other in the head, which killed the wasp 
in ibout a minute, when the dead body is sucked of its 
“ marrow and juices,” and its skin hangs in the web as 
a trophy. 
Group— DIPLOPTERA. 
This group of insects is so called from the front wing 
being folded longitudinally in repose. The prothorax 
is prolonged backwards to the base of the wings ; the 
eyes are kidney-shaped, and extend nearly to the base 
of the mandibles ; the tibiee of the fore legs and of the 
middle pair are furnished with a single spine at their 
tip ; the tibiae of the hind pair are armed with two 
spines. There are two subgroups of the Diploptera. 
In the solitary group there are males and females. In 
189 
the Social Wasps there are also workers or neuters. 
The females and workers are furnished with a sting. 
This group of insects is widely distributed, although 
there are countries, such as Africa, Australia, and 
South America, which do not seem to contain examples 
of the typical genus of the social group Vespa. 
These insects are celebrated for their interesting 
habits, and for the wonderful mud, clay, paper, or 
pasteboard-like structures which many of them raise, 
as well as for the wonderful beauty of the hexagonal 
cells which they construct. These structures will be 
referred to further on. 
Some of the Wasps construct nests of clay. Of this 
there is a fine example from Berbice, or some adjoining 
part of South America, exhibited in one of the cases at 
the British Museum, containing many stages of comb, 
all formed of the same material ; and the common 
entrance is by a long slit in their common envelope. 
Mr. Ker described a curious clay nest of an Australian 
wasp. It is thimble-shaped ; the lower surface is flat, 
and about its centre there is a most beautiful funnel- 
shaped entrance, the pipe of which is continued a short 
way within the case of the nest. At the top there is 
a single layer of cells, constructed without regularity. 
Fig. 59 represents a section of the very curious 
Fig. 59. 
Section of nest of the honey-making wasp (Myrapetra scutellaris). 
nest of the Myrapetra scutellaris, a small wasp of dingy 
colour, with a marked yellow scutellum. It is a native 
of La Plata, and constructs a very hard pasteboard 
nest, curiously knobbed on the outside ; and the en- 
trances of the nest are very beautifully arranged in a 
pent-like form, so that no rain, nor large moths or 
beetles, could enter to injure it. The Wasp certainly 
collects honey. I first described this nest about twenty 
years ago. In October, 1861, a second magnificent 
specimen was presented to the museum by Professor 
Maskelyne. This nest contained more than a hundred 
specimens of a live Mantispa, probably a parasite on 
the nest. This nest contained honey. The honey is 
said to be sought after by the jaguar, whose nose must 
