1864.] 
453 
all other writers on the subject and contrary to my experience with re¬ 
gard to North American species, % Bombus appearing exclusively in 
the autumn.* We know also, on the authority of Huber, that the 
working honey-bee occasionally lays % eggs, although that writer states 
that these eggs are invariably destroyed by the other working-bees 
three days after they are sealed up in their cells. (Quoted by St. Farg. 
Hijmenopt. I, p. 359.) Bevan, however, (quoted by Westw. Intr. II, 
* See Westw. Intr. II, p. 279, note -''- and p. 281: St. Farg. Hymenopt. I, pp. 
■14^9 and 452, who quotes Dalilbom and Huber as being of the opinion eontrary 
to bis own. Some conspicuous proofs of St. Fargeau’s inaccuracy may here be 
mentioned, l.s^. He asserts {Hymenopt. I, p. 46) that there are no apterous spe¬ 
cies in Hymenoptera, although Gravenhorst had long before established the 
apterous Ichneumonide genus Pezomachus, to say nothing of the Chalcidide ge¬ 
nus Choreius and the Cynipide genus Biorhiza. 2nd. In Vol. II, pp. 212-214, two 
species of bees are described under the genus Melitta, and in pp. 145-7 of the 
same volume a new genus, Kirbya, is established to contain these same two 
species of bees, of which slightly diflerent descriptions are given, and all this 
without a word of comment or explanation. 3rd. In Vol. II, p. 261, “ lagopus” 
(hare-footed) is translated ‘q^ied de loup” or wolf-footed. 4:th. In Vol. Ill, p. 
509, he finds fault with a certain Italian Committee of Haturalists, who had 
issued a most interesting Eeport on the well-demonstrated fact that Scolia, un¬ 
like other Fossores, does not make a nest and carry its prey thereto, but at¬ 
taches its eggs to the larvae of Oryetes, like an Ophion or a Tachina. One 
would suppose,” says he, ‘‘that the gentlemen of the Committee were not aware 
that three years before they wrote their Report I had divided Hymenoptera 
into two Suborders, Ovitithers (egg-placers) and Oviscapters (egg-diggers) 
which last lay their eggs inside the body which serves to nourish them.” As if 
the Ichneumonide Ophion was not, according to his own arrangement, an “Ovi- 
scapter” ! or as if that genus had not been proved, not only three years but many 
years before he wrote, to attach its eggs externally to the body of its victim just 
like the ^‘Ovitither” Scolia! Even if his division had been natural and cor¬ 
rect, such half-Latin and ha-lf-Greek terms, as ‘^ovitithers ” and ‘‘oviscapters,” 
might well have grated harshly upon the ears of a Committee, composed of 
descendants of the ancient Romans, bth. The “Vallonia” in w'hich the above- 
mentioned Oryetes larva occurred is not, as St. Fargeau erroneously supposes, 
“tannee” (tan-bark), but a kind of acorn so called and extensively employed 
in tanning. (See Macculloch, Diction. Commerce, “ Vallonia.”) Hence St. Far¬ 
geau’s remark that “ he cannot conceive why M. Passerini stops to combat the 
opinion that the larva of Scolia may possibly hQ frugivorous, seeing that there 
were no fruits either whole or chopped up near it,” and that such a supposition 
is “ neither sustained nor sustainable,” is based upon a misapprehension of the 
meaning of the common word “Vallonia.” For Vallonia acorns are certainly 
fruits, in the botanical sense of the term, though " tan-bark” is not. {Ibid. p. 
506, note 1, and p. 507.) 
