Australian insects

Family Scoliidae.

Family Sphegidae.

12. Bembex tridentifera (Smith).

(Original photo. Burton.)

The members of the typical Genus Evania are generally shining black insects, sometimes variegated with dull red markings; the head and thorax are short and broad; the abdomen has the first segment produced into a slender stalk, and the remaining ones forming a vertically compressed hatchet-like body. They are parasitic upon the egg cases of cockroaches; some with a very wide range have been introduced in all probability with their cosmopolitan hosts, while they are often found in the house flying on the window panes, evidently introduced in the same manner. In the bush the perfect insects are commonly found on flowering shrubs in the summer time. About 20 species are described from Australia and Tasmania. Evania princeps is of a uniform black colour with dusky wings, and is recorded from most parts of Australia, Woodlark Island and New Guinea. It is one of our largest species, measuring ½ an inch in length, broad in proportion, and furnished with very long spined legs.

The Genus Gasteruption, which takes the place of the Genus Foenus in the earlier catalogues, contains 36 described species from Australia; as they are rare insects, there are probably many more to be discovered. Nothing is known about their habits for certain, but they are supposed to be parasitic upon the larvae of wood boring insects; I have generally found them flying round the trunk of a dead or burnt tree. They differ from the former genus in having the head almost globular, with antennae standing out straight in front, and large oval eyes on the sides; the thorax is more elongate, rounded in front, so that the insect appears to have a slight neck. The abdomen springs from a rounded node on the thorax, with the basal segments slender, swelling out gradually, and broadest at the tip; the females bear a very long hair-like ovipositor. The legs are slender, the hind pair longest, with both the thighs and apical half of the tibiae thickened in a very distinctive manner. Ten species are described from Sydney; and one, Gasteruption pedunculatum, is also common to New Zealand.

The Genus Aulacus contains ten described species of smaller insects. Aulacus apicalis is parasitic upon the larvae of a longicorn beetle (Piesarthrius marginellus). I have found as many as fifty, each enclosed in a thin parchment cocoon, all matted together in a single cavity. This little wasp has a long extended ovipositor, and measures about ½ an inch in length; the head and greater portion of the abdomen is black, the rest reddish brown, with a blotch of yellow on the upper surface of the base of the abdomen; the hyaline wings are tipped with black.

Family 12. Long-tailed Wasps.
MEGALYRIDAE.

These remarkable parasitic wasps, peculiar to Australia, are comprised in a single genus containing 16 species, none of which are very common. They are all shining black insects; the head short, broad and almost rounded, the thorax broad and stout, both very rugose and clothed with fine silvery hairs on the sides; the eyes large, circular, and very prominent; ocelli small; the antennae composed of irregular wiry joints; the wings semitransparent, generally banded with black, and the transverse nervures wanting in the apical half; legs long, with the thighs thickened. The abdomen is closely attached to the thorax, cylindrical, tapering to the extremity, and in the females furnished with an ovipositor often more than three times the whole length of the insect, looking exactly like three black horse-hairs. These elongated ovipositors are used for depositing their eggs in the wood-boring larvae of longicorn beetles belonging to the Genus Phoracantha, and probably others of like habits, which feed under the bark in the sap wood of different eucalypts. The perfect insects are generally found about flowers on low shrubs in summer.

Megalyra shuchardi is of the usual black colour with silvery pubescence; the wings are pitch black and opaque: the whole insect measures slightly under 1 inch in length, with the ovipositor over three inches. It is found in Victoria and New South Wales, and also recorded from Melville Island on the North Coast. Megalyra fasciipennis was described by Westwood when he founded the genus, in the Transactions of the Entomological Society 1841; and it is again figured in Griffith’s Animal Kingdom, Insects, Vol. II. It is much smaller than the previous one, of similar form, the legs and ovipositor reddish brown, the wings hyaline, barred across the centre and clouded at the extremities with blackish brown. The male is much smaller than the female, with similar wings, but the body is more slender and comes to a point at the tip, furnished with a curious bifid anal appendage. This is the species we have found breeding from the longicorn larvae.

Six other species have been described, some by Schletterer (Berliner Entom. Zeitschrift 1889); one, Megalyra melanoptera, closely allied to Westwood’s dark winged species. In 1902 Szepligeti (Termes Z. Fuzetek, xxv.) monographed the family and added one more; and Bradley last year, describing the last new form (Trans. Ent. Society of London 1905) appends a translation of the former’s tabulation of all the known species, seven in number. I have (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1906) since added 8 new species to the list.

Family 13. Ants.
FORMICIDAE.

The ants are among the first insects that attract one’s notice in a new country; civilization seems to agree with many species which form their nests in the lawns or gardens, and even take up their quarters in the house. Within the last decade a small introduced species has appeared in the heart of London, and the small red ant, Monomorium pharaonis, is a world wide pest in houses from Europe to Australia.

Ants live in communities forming nests in the ground, under logs or stones, or in dead trees, and sometimes among the foliage of plants. These communities consist of winged males and females, and wingless aborted females known as workers, the bulk of the family consisting of the latter; in some groups there are several varieties of workers, that are often called soldiers on account of their great size and swollen heads. In those species that are furnished with a sting both the workers and winged females should be handled with care.

They are divided into five sub-families, based on the difference in the structure of the segments of the body, absence or presence of a sting, and a few other minor characters. The leading specialists differ somewhat in the sequence of these groups; I follow Forel in placing the Ponerinae at the head of the family; and for a good classification and definition of the genera would refer my readers to Emery’s paper in the “Annales de la Societe Entomologique de Belgique,” Vol. xl., 1896. All our species described before 1858 are listed in Smith’s British Museum “Catalogue of the Formicidae,” where he described a number of new species: Lowne described a number of new species collected in the neighbourhood of Sydney in the Entomologist, Vol. ii., 1865: Mayr in several papers, chief of which are “Myrmecologische Studien,” “Neue Formiciden,” and “Die Australischen Formiciden” added many up to 1876. Emery, Forel, and others have since added to the list; and in Dalla Torre’s great “Catalogue of the Hymenoptera,” published in 1893, all species described up to that date are recorded. I have lately (1905) published a list of Australian species (Miscellaneous Publications No. 889, Dep. Agr. N.S.W.), including all Forel and others have added to our fauna, in which nearly 400 species are recorded, without counting the large number of races and varieties into which some of them are divided. From my own researches I think a great many more will be found when they are systematically collected in the tropical scrubs and the dry districts in the interior, which as yet have hardly been touched.

The sub-family Ponerinae includes many large or medium sized ants with elongated bodies furnished with only one constricted segment or node at the base of the abdomen, and the latter terminating in a powerful sting. The larvae are enclosed in stout silken cocoons. The Genus Myrmecia contains most of our largest typical species peculiar to Australia, popularly known as “bull-dog ants,” “inchmen,” or “jumpers”; about 34 species have been described, some of which have a very wide range. The “Jumper,” Myrmecia albo-cincta, forms its nest under the shelter of a low bush; it is a low mound with an opening on the summit, and another on the side level with the ground; when disturbed these ants come rushing out like a pack of dogs with a series of short jumps, and attack everything they meet. It is one of the smaller species, about ½ an inch in length, of a uniform black colour, with only the front and hind portion of the thorax brownish red to yellow. Myrmecia forficata is our large red and black “bull-dog ant,” with a very extended range like the previous one from Victoria to Queensland. They measure up to 1 inch in length, and are of a uniform dull red, except the eyes and abdomen, which are black. They live in rather large colonies up to 200 in number, digging deep circular shafts or irregular chambers under logs; when away from the latter, they form regular domed mounds over the nests, which in summer contain the large, elongated, oval, brown sacks enclosing the pupae, and often a number of winged males and females; the former with small heads and jaws, the latter with jaws as large or larger than those of the workers. Myrmecia gulosa is of a lighter red colour, with the tip of the abdomen black. M. tarsata is our common black bull-dog ant, with yellow jaws, and antennae and tips of the legs reddish brown; it has a great habit of hunting up and down the larger tree trunks, and drops to the ground at the least alarm; when disturbed in the nest, if the first two or three are captured, the others will usually retreat down their burrows, and not show fight like the other species. Sharp notes the bull-dog as forming large mounds (Cambridge Natural History); but I think he was misinformed, as the nests of the Mound Ant, Iridomyrmex detectus, are often confounded with these ants. The Genus Odontomachus contains a number of curious slender black ants with large heads and long projecting jaws; they are more tropical in their range, but O. ruficeps and its varieties are found from the Darling River N.S. Wales through Queensland to North Australia.

The “Green-head,” Ectatomma metallicum, is a common ant of medium size that lives in small communities under stones or logs, and often makes nests in the dry banks of lawns in our gardens. Though somewhat sluggish, they sting sharply if they crawl on one when resting on the grass. About 28 species and many varieties of this genus occur in Australia; one in New Zealand; and 3 in New Caledonia. The members of the Genus Ponera are remarkable for their extended range; we have several species or varieties in Queensland closely allied to species from South America, Borneo, Europe, and Africa, while three are recorded from New Zealand; Euponera lutea, a slender pale yellow ant with the abdominal segment constricted, lives in small communities under stones or roots. It ranges from Sydney to Fremantle, round to N. Queensland. Pachycondyla piliventris is a large, hairy black ant with large head and rounded body, roughened, and clothed with fine rusty down. They are generally found under stones in communities of a dozen or so, and when exposed or disturbed pretend to be dead, with their legs folded up under the body; they are common about Sydney.

Six species of the Genus Sphinctomyrmex are found chiefly in the North. They are somewhat rare ants; I have found two species, both small, slender, dull brownish yellow insects living under stones; S. froggatti in a vineyard near Sydney; and the second, S. hednigae, in the New England district under large stones.

The second sub-family, Dorylinae, comprises ants with the antennae placed close together in the front of the head, the abdomen elongated, with the first segment forming an irregular node. This group contains some very remarkable ants in Africa and America, but is only represented in Australia by two species belonging to the Genus Ænictus, both of which are described from specimens collected by Turner at Mackay, Queensland.

The third sub-family, Myrmicinae, is well represented here; they are all small or medium sized ants, with the base of the abdomen formed into two small nodes, and the sting rudimentary; the pupa naked and not enclosed in a cocoon. Many of them live in very large communities.

The members of the Genus Meranoplus are tiny little brown ants with rounded heads and bodies, resembling some of the small wingless female Mutillid in shape and habits, for though they form irregular galleries under stones or in dry banks, they are generally found running up and down tree trunks; when touched they curl up the body and sham death. Meranoplus oceanicus, reddish brown, is common in N.S. Wales; M. pubescens has a very wide range right round Australia.

Monomorium pharaonis is our tiny red house-ant introduced from Europe, now world wide in its range; and when once it becomes established in a house is a difficult pest to destroy. M. rubriceps, a much larger species but under ¼ of an inch in length, is bright reddish brown, with the nodes very small and the apical portion of the abdomen black, and broadly rounded. It is found crawling upon the trunks of trees, and has a wide range from Sydney to Cape York. The typical tree-trunk ants included in the Genus Podomyrma are much larger ants, sluggish in their habits, forming their nests in tree stems and always found crawling about the trunks. They are broad-headed ants with short stout jaws toothed at the tips; the thorax is widest in front, tapering to the narrow pedicle of the broadly rounded abdomen; the thighs of the legs are thickened in the centre. Podomyrma gratiosa, under ½ an inch in length, is bright reddish brown, rugose and spined on the front margin of the thorax, with the abdomen black, smooth, and shining; it is widely distributed over Australia from Adelaide to Cape York. P. adelaidae is a smaller species with black legs, and a distinct oval brown blotch on either side of the black abdomen; it is common in South Australia and Victoria. P. bimaculata is still smaller, with the blotches on the abdomen smaller and more oval; I have had it from Kalgoorlie W.A., and Wagga N.S. Wales.

Plate XIV.—HYMENOPTERA.

Family Formicidae.

The Genus Pheidole is well represented in Australia by 22 species and many varieties found in all parts of the country, forming irregular chambers and galleries under stones and logs; they are tiny reddish brown ants, with a very large headed form of soldiers often four or five times the size of the ordinary workers. The winged forms are also very large in proportion. Pheidole bos is dark reddish brown, the soldiers furnished with very large swollen heads; it ranges from Western Australia to Victoria. P. anthracina is a darker coloured form, ranging from the northern portion of N.S. Wales into Queensland. The members of the Genus Cremastogaster are very small black, brown, or dull yellow coloured ants with longer legs, and heart-shaped bodies; they live in large communities in nests under logs and stones. C. fusca is black with reddish tarsi, and a reddish tint on the thorax; it comes from Queensland. C. pallipes and C. ruficeps are lighter coloured, found under stones about Sydney.

Sima laeviceps is a very curious elongated shining black ant with reddish brown antennae and tarsi, which ranges up the Queensland coast to N.W. Australia, and is found crawling about on tree trunks, when touched curling its body up like a wasp and shamming death.

The sub-family Dolichoderinae comprises a number of small or medium sized ants living often in very large communities and having naked pupae. The base of the abdomen consists of a single small node with no constriction between the two following segments; sting practically wanting (rudimentary). The typical Genus Dolichoderus is represented here by five species widely distributed. D. doriae is common about Sydney living in large communities under logs, often clustered over each other like a swarm of bees; they collect on the leaves of eucalypts, upon which the sugar lerp psylla, (Spondylaspis eucalypti) constructs its larval scales, and suck or lick up the sugary exudation. This ant measures ¼ of an inch in length; the head and thorax are black and roughened; the legs reddish brown, and the flattened heart-shaped abdomen clothed with a silvery pubescence. Leptomyrmex erythrocephalus might well be called the “Silly Ant” from the aimless manner in which it rushes about with its head stuck up in the air, and its abdomen curled over its back. They live in underground nests sometimes deep down, but others live under stones; they are slender-bodied, long-legged black ants under ½ an inch in length, with an oval red head, rounded behind with long slender antennae, and the front of the thorax produced into a slender neck. In some varieties the whole of the thorax, legs, and head are yellowish brown.

The typical Genus Iridomyrmex contains 18 distinct species, some of which have been subdivided into three or four varieties or races; most of them are small, except our “Mound Ant,” sometimes known as the “Meat Ant,” Iridomyrmex detectus, which is the commonest and most widely distributed ant in Australia. They construct large mounds a couple of feet above the surface of the ground, and two or three yards in diameter; they are formed of the soil excavated from beneath when forming their network of irregular open galleries; the upper surface is pierced with numbers of rounded vertical shafts, up which they swarm in countless thousands and attack any intruder, biting savagely with their stout sharp jaws and making things generally unpleasant for the stranger. When a mound is situated in open grassed country, one can trace regular bare roads leading off from the nest, worn smooth by the regular stream of ants passing backward and forward day after day. It is too well known to need description, but measures about ⅓ of an inch in length, and is of a general brownish purple tint, with the head light reddish brown. Smith described the worker under the name of Formica purpurea, and the male as F. detectus, so in most Museum collections it will be found under the former specific name. Forel has made a new variety, which he calls Var sanguineus, of the coastal form found in North Queensland, with the head and thorax light reddish brown.

Most of the other species are small black ants: Iridomyrmex rufoniger is very common in the bush and in the gardens; a variety which Forel has called domesticus is the common black ant that comes into the house in Sydney, and is a regular pest in the summer in many districts. Tapinoma minutum is about as large as the “Mound Ant”; black; the head and thorax deeply pitted and corrugated; the abdomen slightly constricted in the centre, smooth and shining. It comes from Townsville, N.Q.: a second species, T. melanocephalum, taken in Cairns, is also found in Samoa and the Tonga Islands.

The last sub-family, Camponotinae, is a large division well represented in Australia; they live in more or less large communities, and with a few exceptions have the pupae enclosed in cocoons. The base of the abdomen forms a single node, and there is no constriction between the second and third abdominal segments; the sting is wanting, and the anal orifice is fringed with hairs. In the works of early entomologists a number of our ants were described under the Genus Formica, but they have been gradually identified and placed in their proper genera, until we only have about half a dozen still remaining in this genus, probably more on account of the difficulty of identifying them than because they really belong here.

The Genus Acantholepis is represented by four species all described by Forel from specimens I have collected and sent him from N.S. Wales, so that their range seems to be restricted. They are all small, reddish brown, smooth, shining ants; A. bosii was found under stones at Cooma, N.S.W.

The Green Tree-ant, Oecophylla smaragdina, found in tropical Africa, India, and New Guinea, is common in the tropical scrubs on the coast of North Queensland. They live in large communities among the foliage of the trees, in nests formed by webbing the leaves together into an irregular mass varying in size from a cricket ball to a man’s head. The material with which they make these nests is obtained by the workers, by squeezing the pupae and using the secretion they discharge. The winged female measures nearly ¾ of an inch in length, has a broad thorax and large oval body; the worker is only about ¼ of an inch, and slender in proportion, but for his size is the most pugnacious creature in the insect world; if one damages a nest pushing through the scrub, down tumble a swarm of green tree ants on one’s head and neck, and wherever they drop they stick their jaws in and hang on, and each one has to be picked off in detail. In these forests they destroy an immense number of insects, catching the little bees as they come out of their nests in the tree trunks, and dragging the small beetles off the twigs by main force. I have often seen half a dozen hanging on to the legs of a stout weevil, apparently trying to wear him out, for they would remain for hours in the same position, and probably succeeded in the end.

The great Genus Camponotus contains about 400 described species from all parts of the world, of which about 60 are recorded from Australia. Most of them are found in open forest country, forming their nests in the ground, under logs or stones, or near the butts of trees. Several of our common species are known as “sugar ants,” as they come about at night and invade the pantry and store room in search of sweets; but they are omnivorous in their tastes, and will often come round the camp fire at night, prowling about for the small moths that flutter round, often rushing right into the edge of the ashes to capture a moth when it falls with singed wings. Camponotus intrepidus is one of our largest species, varying from black to reddish brown in tint, and is thickly clothed with short hair. They form nests in the open sandstone country about Sydney, sometimes raising a little mound or producing a fragile funnel-shaped structure above the opening leading into the nest. The Sugar Ant, Camponotus nigriceps, is the commonest house species; it forms large chambers under stones or logs in which they all cluster together. The general colour is black, with all the abdomen except the base dull yellow, but the variations of the yellow and black are common; it measures to ¾ of an inch in length.

Camponotus inflatus is the curious “honey ant” of Central Australia figured and described by Lubbock in his “Bees, Ants, and Wasps.” The naturalists on the Horn Exploring Expedition obtained a number of this and other species, described by me in the Zoology of this Expedition. The ordinary members of the “honey pot ants” are of the usual normal form, but certain individuals of each nest of these species are crammed with a honey secretion (probably obtained by the workers from aphids or psyllids), until the abdomen swells out of all proportion to the rest of the ant; the honey pot ants remain hanging about in the bottom of the nests like a number of bottles of honey, incapable of leaving the nest; the supply is probably used as food for the larvae. Spencer says that the blacks dig up these nests and look upon the “honey pots” as great luxuries. The honey is sweet with an acrid taste like the honey of our native bees. They are apparently common in Central Australia; Miss Ormerod sent me some from England which she had received from a correspondent at Kalgoorlie; and recently Mr. Field of Tennant’s Creek sent me a fine red species from the far north.

Camponotus claripes, a smaller pale coloured species, generally makes its galleries at the base of a tree trunk, and has a very wide range from Victoria to North Queensland. I found the cocoons of this species in a nest at Howlong infested with full grown red velvet mites (Trombidiidae), which occupied the whole space.

The Genus Polyrhachis contains a number of black ants of fair size, most of which build their nests in dead logs, and live in rather large communities, but others form small nests by matting the foliage of trees together; the latter are confined to Queensland, and are generally smaller shining black forms. The true “wood ants” are more or less covered with bright metallic pubescence and fine hairs, and with the hind portion of the thorax and the node of the abdomen ornamented with a pair of slender spines.

Polyrhachis ornata is black, with the thorax and base of the spines richly tinted with gold; it comes from Queensland. P. ammon, ranging from Victoria to Queensland, is clothed with pale golden pubescence lightest on the head and thickest on the abdomen. P. semi-aurata has both the head and thorax golden, with the abdomen smooth, black and shining. P. laevior is one of the smaller tree nesting forms, and is smooth and shining without any metallic tints, and the thoracic and abdominal spines are very small. P. turneri, also a northern form, has the head golden, and large well developed spines.

Family 14. Solitary Ants.
MUTILLIDAE.

Though these interesting little creatures were once placed in the Formicidae, and are still popularly known as “Solitary Ants” in Europe and “Cow Ants” in America, they are now classified as the first family of the fossorial wasps. Unlike the true ants, they are solitary in their habits and probably all parasitic in other insects’ nests. Until quite recently they were all placed in the Genus Mutilla, in which about 1,000 species have been described from all parts of the world, and about 130 from Australia; the earlier ones by Messrs. Westwood and Smith, the later ones by Andre, who has had the great advantage of obtaining a great many specimens from Mr. Gilbert Turner, who was able to sex the species, add valuable notes about their habits, and give the exact locality of the specimens collected. Turner, who was a most careful observer, after some years of collecting was not positive where they passed the earlier stages of their existence, but told me that he believed that some of them were parasitic in the nests of ants. Several of the European Mutillidae are known to be parasitic in the nests of bees: I have on several occasions dug the females of the smaller species out of moss at the foot of tree trunks, and our two largest species are generally found under stones in open chambers, while on hot summer days both sexes of Mutilla cordata and several other species are found running up and down the tree trunks.

The males are furnished with two pairs of dark or semiopaque wings. The head is rounded; the antennae curving round; with large eyes and ocelli; the thorax broad, but showing the segmental divisions, and the abdomen rather short and rounded, without any pedicle; the legs stout, and spined on the middle pair. The whole insect is rugose and deeply punctured or roughened, and more or less clothed with pubescence and longer hairs. The females are wingless, with shorter curled antennae, very different in size, sculpture, and even colouration to the males of the same species; with the body more elongated and terminating in a long powerful sting. Andre remarks upon the brilliant metallic colouration of many of the Australian species, which is much more pronounced than in those from other parts of the world. He also says that they resemble the American species in the fact that they can be divided into two groups by the configuration of the eyes.

Within the last few years specialists have subdivided the Genus Mutilla into a number of new genera; and Andre places nearly all the Australian species in the Genus Ephutermorpha, but for simplicity I retain the old name.

Mutilla rugicollis, described by Westwood many years ago, is our largest species, measuring in the larger female over ¾ of an inch in length. She is black, very deeply punctured, thickly clothed with black and silvery white hairs, the latter forming white patches on the hind portion of the head, sides and under-surface of the abdomen, and has a dorsal row of five distinct spots down the back. The male is much smaller, with somewhat similar but not so distinct white markings, and is furnished with dark brown wings, which are hyaline, close to the sides of the thorax.

Mutilla quadrisignata has about the same measurements as the female of the last species; with blackish hairy covering, except on the under surface of the abdomen, and four dark, reddish brown, oval spots forming a square on the dorsal surface. Both these species have a wide range over Australia. Mutilla ferruginata is a smaller species with a similar deeply punctured surface; is of a uniform dull rusty red colour, thickly clothed with darker brown hairs; the legs and antennae deeper coloured than the body. Mutilla cordata is typical of the smaller active forms that frequent tree trunks; the male is black with dark wings and slender abdomen, and measures about ⅓ of an inch in length; in this case much larger than the female, which has a rounded body with the centre of the dorsal surface occupied with a large rounded golden blotch. I have found the best time to collect these insects is in the hottest part of the day, when they are running up and down the larger tree trunks; but they are very active, and drop at the least alarm, so that it takes some practice to capture them.

Family 15. Flower Wasps.
THYNNIDAE.

These handsome flower wasps are closely allied to the members of the previous family, as they have similar wingless females of such peculiar shapes that, if examined alone, they would never be taken for the consorts of the large wasp-like Thynnus, with its long stout antennae, well developed legs, and large powerful wings. The males fly about the flowers of leptospermum and eucalypts, and when captured bite and pretend to sting by turning up the tip of the abdomen, which ends in a horny, harmless process. Fortunately, when hunted for in the summer, most of our commoner species can be taken in copula with the smaller female, with which he flies about quite easily; when caught the female immediately detaches herself and falls to the ground, where she crawls out of sight, so that care must be taken by the collector to keep each pair captured in a box by themselves, or else when once mixed up it is impossible to determine unknown species. Australia is the headquarters of this group, for of about 400 described species, 300 are peculiar to this country; the others are chiefly confined to Brazil and Chili in South America, with a few from Asia and the Islands. Smith has described a great number in the British Museum Catalogues; Westwood others; and Guerin those collected during the Voyage de Coquille in 1830; but as many of these were determined from single specimens of one sex, it is certain that when a collection of sexed specimens can be compared with the types, the number of species will suffer considerable reduction.

Nothing definite is known about the earlier stages of their development; I have however obtained cocoons composed of a stout silken case enveloped in a thin outer second papery covering, oval in form, with a nipple-like projection at the extremity, from which I have bred one of our large species. These cocoons are buried several inches in the ground like those of the Scolias, so that the females, which are furnished with short, stout, spiny legs well adapted for digging, probably lay their eggs in lamellicorn larvae living in the loose soil.

A number of our common species are plentiful on the flowering Leptospermum and Melaleuca bushes, and many of the smaller ones may be found feeding upon the honey dew covering the foliage of small eucalypts that are infested with scale insects. Thynnus variabilis, our commonest species, is a very handsome wasp measuring over ¾ of an inch in length, and nearly 1¾ across the outspread wings; the general colour is brown; the front of the head, hind margin of thorax, and broad bands or double dots across the abdominal segments bright yellow; the semiopaque wings reddish brown. The female, very broad in proportion, is shorter than the male; she is reddish brown; the abdominal segments are rugose and blotched with yellow, forming transverse bars of rounded dots on the hind portion. The antennae are short and curled; the head broad, with a stout thorax; and she has short hairy legs. Thynnus leachellus, slightly smaller, is found in the vicinity of Sydney. The abdomen is broader and shorter in proportion; the general tint is black, richly marked on the head and thorax with bright yellow, and each of the abdominal segments carries a narrow transverse band of the same colour, broken by a dorsal stripe of black. The female is much smaller, short and thickset; is of a general reddish brown colour; the abdomen is marked with yellow blotches and bands, only the last one divided as in the male. Thynnus flavilabris, somewhat larger, is quite black, with only the face marked with deep yellow; the wings are dark, smoke-coloured; and the hind margin of the thorax is thickly covered with white hairs.

Thynnus brenchleyi is a type of the North Australian forms; it is nearly as large as T. variabilis, but has the whole upper surface smooth and shining, the hind margin of the thorax and the base of the abdomen truncate and fitting close against each other. The head and prothorax are bright yellow, the rest black. This handsome insect was described by Smith in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Curaçoa, and it was said to come from the northern coast of Western Australia; my specimens were taken near Charters Towers, North Queensland. A female, sent with this species as its mate, is black, marked on the head, sides of thorax, and abdomen with yellow, and is furnished with a curious fringe of pale buff hairs on the hind margin of the thorax, and along the front of the first abdominal segment.

In the Genus Rhagigaster the males are more slender in form; the abdomen, elongated and deeply constricted or corrugated at the junction of the segments, is usually black, with more or less dark coloured wings: the females are very small in proportion.

Among the most remarkable is the “Blue Ant,” Diamma bicolor. In this case the female is most common; about Sydney I have caught scores of females, but so far have never taken a male. She measures 1 inch in length, and is of a rich metallic blue to purple colour, smooth and shining, the antennae and legs reddish brown. She is furnished with a fine pair of jaws and a powerful sting, more formidable than that of any ant, and when disturbed turns over on her back and shows fight with both jaws and sting. The male, much smaller in size, is black, with red legs and black tarsi; the wings are semitransparent with black nervures. The whole upper surface of head and thorax is rugose, and the insect very ant-like in general appearance.

Mr. Roland Turner is at present engaged in working up the Australian Thynnidae at the British Museum, having his own and my collection of specimens to identify; probably this combined collection is the largest in existence, and contains an immense number of sexed specimens collected in the field, as we have both spent a great deal of time over these typical Australian insects.

Family 16. Hairy Flower Wasps.
SCOLIIDAE

These insects are easily distinguished from the Thynnidae in being thickset hairy wasps; both sexes are furnished with wings in which the neuration is distinct at the base, but the nervures fade out before they reach the tips; the thorax is broad, rounded in front, with a very short pedicle attaching it to the stout abdomen. The legs are stout, compressed, very hairy, and spiny, with one stout spur on the tibiae of the middle pair of legs well adapted for burrowing. The males are easily distinguished from the females in being more slender in form, with longer straight antennae (in the latter sex short, thickened, and curling round the sides of the head); and the legs are slender, with fewer spines. Several species are plentiful about the Sydney gardens and bush, where they can be easily captured on the flowers. In observations made by earlier entomologists, their life history seems to have been confused with those of the long legged sand wasps, which burrow in the ground and form regular nests provisioned with other insects and spiders; but the Scoliidae form no true nest; the female burrows into the ground or under logs, where she finds the larvae or white grubs of the larger lamellicorn beetles, on which she deposits a single egg, first carefully stinging the beetle grub (according to Fabre, the French naturalist, who studied the habits of several European species). The young wasp hatching out attaches itself to the helpless grub in such a manner that it does not injure the vital organs, and by the time it has devoured its host it is ready to pupate, spinning a brown silken cocoon which fits into the cavity first occupied by the unfortunate beetle grub; when fully developed it digs its way up to the surface.

About 50 species have been described from Australia; Smith listed and described a number of new species (British Museum Catalogue Hymenoptera 1855): Saussure described several in the same year (Memoires de la Societe de Physique, &c., Geneve), and later on others in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France 1858. In 1864 he and Sichel monographed the family: Smith described 8 more four years after: and Kirby going through the British Museum Collections in 1889 revised the Genera and added another to our list.

Discolia soror is our commonest shining black species; the female measures over 1 inch in length, and is easily identified by its beautiful, iridescent, opaque, dark blue wings. It may be often seen in our gardens on the flowers or hovering in numbers over a dead stump, looking for beetle larvae in which to deposit its eggs. Scolia fulva is our largest species; the female measures up to 1½ inches in length, and is broad in proportion; it is black and reddish yellow, but so thickly clothed with coarse reddish hairs that it is more the latter tint; and the semiopaque wings are reddish brown. This species is figured and described by Gray in Griffith’s Animal Kingdom 1832.

Scolia radula is a smaller black species, under 1 inch in length; the head, apex of thorax, base of abdomen and most of the under-surface are clothed with grey hairs, but the hind margin of the head and dorsal surface of abdomen are clothed with reddish brown; the latter is orange yellow above, but marked with black at the base and tip.

Dielis 7-cincta, one of our commonest species, often clustering in numbers on flowering shrubs in the gardens, was described by Fabricius, and is the male of Dielis (Scolia) formosa which was not described till 1846 by Guérin. The male, ⅔ of an inch in length, is very slender in form, of a general black colour, clothed with fine grey hairs, and marked with light yellow on the head and thorax, with five broad bands of the same colour on the body. The female, under 1 inch in length, is black, with the abdomen marked on the upper surface with reddish yellow somewhat variable in its distribution, and clothed with reddish brown hairs, thickest on the head and thorax. This insect has been found in Queensland destroying the underground grub of the Sugar-cane Beetle (Lepidoderma albo-hirtum).

Family 17. Sand Wasps.
POMPILIDAE.

This group is well represented in Australia, and widely distributed over the country; about 60 species have been described: several collected by Sir Joseph Banks in 1775 were described by Fabricius; Smith, in the Catalogue previously noticed, in a series of papers between 1862–69 in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, other Journals, and a British Museum publication (New Species of Hymenoptera 1879) published after his death, has described most of our species; Saussure in the Hymenoptera of the Reise Novara; and later Kohl has enriched our list.

The typical genera Pompilus and Salius comprise a number of large yellow and black wasps with coloured wings tipped with black. They have long legs well adapted for running over the ground, and may be seen any warm sunny morning hunting about for spiders, with their antennae and wings constantly on the move as they rush about. They will attack the largest spider whether on the ground or hidden in a tree trunk; one large black undetermined species even ventures down the nests of the Trap-door Spiders and drags them forth. Sometimes one of the larger ground spiders shows fight, and it becomes a duel to the death, the wasp now and then being captured by its intended victim. They often place the spider in any suitable cavity with their eggs, but others form extensive burrows in the soil. Salius (Priocnemus) bicolor is one of our largest yellow and black species, often measuring 2 inches across the wings, but variable both in colouration and size. She forms a burrow as large as a mouse hole, several feet in length, with quite a large mound of excavated soil outside the entrance; when emerging from the chamber she looks a most formidable creature, but unless captured never attempts to attack anyone. She sometimes stores her nest with cicadas many times larger than herself, which she rides down to their tomb before they are quite dead. The young larva is usually attached to the cicada’s breast when hatched out; but I have never been able to keep any alive after being dug out of the nest. This wasp has a curious habit of flying round and dragging a cicada off a branch when it is sucking up the sap; taking its place, she calmly stands over the spot and drinks up the sap that exudes from the puncture the dispossessed cicada had made in the bark. The members of the Genus Pepsis are large black wasps with a beautiful metallic lustre on the wings; they are chiefly confined to the tropics, but Saussure has described one species, P. australis, from this country.

Family 18. Smaller Sand Wasps.
SPHEGIDAE.

Westwood placed these wasps and the Pompilidae in a single family, but Kohl, while separating the latter, has grouped a number that were once ranked as families, under the Sphegidae, calling them simply sub-families, thus making this a much more extensive division, the Sphegidae proper forming only a part of the whole.

Dalla Torre in his Catalogue treats them as a sub-division of the Crabronidae; but Sharp takes Kohl’s classification, which I follow.

The Sphegides are easily distinguished by the peculiar structure of the abdomen; the basal portion is produced into a slender rod-like stalk or pedicle, with the apical part forming a rounded or oval tip; they are very active creatures with the habits of the larger sand wasps.

The world-wide Genus Ammophila is represented in Australia by four described species; they make their nests in sandy ground, digging out a straight burrow with an enlarged chamber at the end, which they store with different kinds of caterpillars they capture on the plants while hunting; these they sting but do not kill, but though paralysed and incapable of motion, remain alive long enough to furnish the baby wasps with a supply of fresh food.

Ammophila suspiciosa is a slender black insect under 1 inch in length; the thickened tip of the abdomen is dull red. This is our common species found all over the western country. A. instabilis is a larger black species with semiopaque wings and reddish legs; the tubular portion of the body and base of the thickened part are reddish brown: this one is a northern form found in Queensland.

Pelopaeus laetus is a very handsome black and yellow wasp with a somewhat similar shaped body tipped with black; it is very variable in size, the largest measuring about 1 inch in length. It has a wide range over Australia, and differs from the former insects in being a regular “mud dauber,” forming a regular clay nest consisting of a number of different cells, each of which is filled with paralysed spiders. It is a very friendly insect, often flying into the room on a summer day; and will build its nest on the edge of a roof or wall.

The typical Genus Sphex contains a number of fine black wasps more or less clothed with silver or golden pubescence on the head and thorax, with the slender pedicle at the base of the thorax very well defined, and the hind portion of the abdomen almost round or oval. They form underground burrows branching out into a chamber at the end, in which they store all kinds of different insects, each species seeming to have a preference for its particular choice. Sphex vestita, one of our largest species, has the face thickly clothed with silvery pubescence; it is often common in sandy patches in gardens, where it hunts for small orthopterous insects, and is particularly fond of a species of small brown cricket which lives in the long grass. S. opulenta is a smaller species about ¾ of an inch in length, with the face and back of the thorax bright silver, and the dorsal surface of the latter coppery. About 30 species are described from Australia, some of which have a very wide range over the interior.

The Larrides are medium sized black wasps with the abdomen not stalked, but coming to a point at the junction with the thorax, and often ornamented with golden or silvery pubescence forming bands on the body.

Shuckard described a number of our species belonging to the Genus Pison (Trans. Ent. Society 1837–40), where he gives some account of the group. Smith in the same Transactions, 1869, catalogued those previously described, and added a number of new species; and also added the Genus Parapison, containing species from India, Ceylon and Australia. The European Tachytes, which Westwood says are captured in sand banks, are represented here by three species, all shining black insects about ½ an inch in length. Saussure (1855), and Kohl later have described others.

Pison spinolae and P. decipiens are both black wasps with silvery bands upon the sides of the abdomen; the latter are the smaller. They are both common about Sydney, and have a very wide range over the country; they are very fearless insects, flying into the house, and wherever they come upon a convenient hole in the rung of a chair, or even a key hole, will set to work and line it with clay, forming an irregular chamber, which they store with small spiders, deposit the egg, and after closing it up fly away quite satisfied. Sometimes they form a row of round clay cells on a coat or other garment hanging on a wall.

The Nyssonides comprise a smaller group of closely allied forms, differing chiefly in the venation of the wings. Smith has described most of our species. The members of the Genus Gorytes are represented by five described species; all small, active, bee-like insects with coppery fasciae upon the abdomen; several of these are known in the bush as “policemen flies” from their habit of coming round and catching flies upon one’s clothes and even snapping one off the back of one’s hand; these flies are killed with their stout jaws and deposited in their nests constructed in the ground.

The curious, large, reddish brown wasp, Stizus pectoralis, from Queensland, at first sight might be taken for a Thynnus, but the distinct form of the body, and the antennae thickened toward the tips, show that it could not belong to the flower wasps. It is now placed in the allied Genus Sphecius.

The Philanthides are easily distinguished from the other groups by the curious rugose or punctured integument which makes them look as though coated with armour plate, and the curious constrictions or rings between the abdominal segments, becoming smallest toward the tip. They are generally black or reddish brown, marked with pale yellow spots and bands. With the exception of one species of the Genus Philanthus all ours have been placed in the world-wide Genus Cerceris. I have generally captured them about flowers, or flying round bushes infested with scale insects that were throwing off honey dew, which sweet secretion has a great attraction for small hymenoptera of many different families. Eight species are described by Smith and Saussure; there are probably many new species to be recorded. Nothing is known about their habits in this country, but the European species form nests in the ground, which they provision with small beetles; and each species is said to confine its attention to a different group of beetles; one uses only small weevils; another carries off chrysomalids, and so on with each species.

The Crabronides are another small group, and under the present classification all our species have been placed by Smith in the world-wide Genus Crabro. They are medium sized black wasps with broad stout heads and unstalked bodies, generally banded with orange, red, or yellow; they form burrows in the stems of plants, which they store with captured flies. Five species have been described from Australia and Tasmania.

The Bembecides are very handsome, smooth, shining wasps of fair size, with broad bodies, rounded and broadly pointed at the extremity. They are generally met with along sandy pathways and roads, flitting along in front of one, settling on the ground and rising again, so that they are easily captured with a net. They make shallow burrows on the roadside in which they place flies, which they capture with their powerful jaws.

Nearly all our species have been described by Smith in the British Museum Catalogue Hymenoptera 1856, and the Annals and Magazine of Natural History 1873. Under 20 species are recorded from Australia. Bembex tridentifera was described by Smith from Moreton Bay, Queensland, but it has a wide range southwards to Victoria. It measures just under ¾ of an inch in length; is of a general black colour; the face yellow with a black trident-like mark above and two black spots below the antennae; the legs yellow lightly marked with black; the upper surface of the thorax spotted and barred with yellow, and the abdomen beautifully banded with irregular white bands on the 2nd to 4th segments, with the first and last only marked on the sides. B. vespiformis ranges from West Australia to S. Australia, is somewhat smaller than the last, and viewed from above is black, with very faint markings on the thorax, and a broad white band on either side of the first segment of the abdomen almost meeting on the back.

DIPLOPTERA.

The true wasps have the antennae generally elbowed and thickened toward the tips, and the eyes notched. They have the wings folded like a fan in repose, but can fly well, and have legs and feet adapted for walking. Some species are solitary in their habits, and consist of males and females only; others live in large communities, and, like the ants, comprise males, females, and workers, the latter aborted females.

Family 19. Solitary Wasps.
EUMENIDAE.

This group is well represented in Australia; they are well known to residents in the country from their habit of constructing clay nests under the shelter of the verandah or the eaves of the houses. They usually appear in pairs, and rapidly build up the structure, flying backward and forward with their earthen loads; from this habit they get the name of “Mud Daubers” in America, and “Mason Wasps” in this country. A number of our species are described and figured in Saussure’s “Monograph des Guepes Solitaires” published in 1851.

The Genus Eumenes contains a number of very handsome insects that are easily recognised from the basal portion of the abdomen forming a more or less slender stalk, and the apical portion rounded at the junction and tapering to a sharp point at the tip. They build clay nests containing a number of cells, and store them with caterpillars, which they do not appear to be able to paralyse in the same manner as the large sand wasps, for they are capable of movement after they are enclosed in the cell. By some wonderful instinct, the female wasp does not deposit her egg haphazard among the wriggling grubs that would easily damage it, but suspends it by a fine stalk to the roof of the cell in such a manner, that when the little wasp larva hatches out, it can safely reach down and feed upon the nearest caterpillar, until it has finished the last bit, when it spins a thin parchment cocoon and pupates in the cavity which before was its larder.

Eumenes bicincta has a wide range over Australia; it measures about 1 inch in length; the stalk is not quite so long as the base of the abdomen, and is of a uniform deep orange yellow colour, with the top of the head, centre of thorax, and broad band in the middle of the abdomen black. Eumenes latreillei, a larger species, has the stalk of the abdomen shorter and thickened, with the basal half of the body from the stalk black. Eumenes servillei, the smallest of the three, is more slender in shape, has more black upon the thorax, and the stalked portion of the body is variegated with black. Eumenes arcuatus is a more northern species common in Queensland; it measures over 1 inch in length, and is the only one with blackish wings; it has a very long slender stalked abdomen. It is black, mottled on the head and thorax with yellow; and the abdominal segments are barred on either side with yellow, which appear to form regular slender bands across, but do not actually meet in the centre.

Two of our handsomest mason wasps belonging to the Genus Abispa measure 1 inch in length, but are so stout in form that they appear much larger; they are black and deep orange yellow, with dull yellow wings tipped with black, and the stout broad thorax fits close against the base of the abdomen. Abispa splendida has the front half of the first abdominal segment black, with the hind portion yellow, while in Abispa ephippium the whole of the first abdominal segment is yellow. They both build very large, solid, clay nests generally containing two rows of cells, about 6 in number, above each other, with thick partitions between them; the outer surface is rounded on the sides; each cell is stored with caterpillars upon which the larva feeds, and finally pupates in a reddish brown parchment-like cocoon.

The Genus Rhynchium comprises about six described species, handsome insects not unlike the former in general form, but with the abdomen more tapering. Rhynchium mirabile measures ¾ of an inch in length; it is of a general black colour, the head marked with, and collar of thorax, yellow; and the hind margin of the abdominal segments is ringed with slender bands of orange yellow. Rhynchium superbum is a smaller insect of similar form and colour, with the basal half of the abdomen black and the hind portion rich yellow. Both these species come from Queensland.

The Genus Odynerus contains a great number of small thickset wasps, that make clay nests of various shapes, sometimes very delicate in structure, forming a finger-shaped row of clay cells or rounded cup-shaped chambers; while some species make use of a hole in the wood or wall and simply coat it over with clay. Australia is rich in species, some of which have a very wide range. Odynerus bicolor, one of our commonest species, is black, with the collar of the thorax, legs, and all the abdomen except the basal segment, dull reddish yellow. Odynerus nigro-cinctus is of a general dark orange yellow colour, with the head and centre of abdomen black. The closely allied species forming the Genus Alastor differ slightly in the venation of the wings, but their habits are identical; about 30 species have been described from Australia, chiefly by Saussure, some of which are figured in colours in his Monograph. These wasps may be captured round water-holes in the summer months, and may sometimes be found resting upon grass stalks in the early morning.

Family 20. Social or Paper-nest Wasps.
VESPIDAE.

These typical wasps are found all over the world, and next to the bees have probably received more attention from the casual observer than most of the other groups. Each community consists of males, females, and workers, and though the structure of their nests differs considerably in the various groups, the social economy is the same. The female first starting the nest constructs a stout stalk at the apex attached to a twig or roof, and constructs a six-sided cell from which the whole mushroom-shaped nest is built. In each little cell she deposits an egg from which the legless white grub emerges, attaches itself to the roof of the cell and hangs head downward, being fed by the mother wasp until full grown with food chiefly composed of masticated spiders, when it pupates under a silken cover spun over the apex of the cell. As soon as it emerges it sets to work to help on the nest, so that the community rapidly increases in numbers. The nest of Polistes tasmaniensis sometimes measures six inches in diameter. Some confusion as to the identity of this species and P. variabilis seems to exist, but from Saussure’s description, our common species appears to be P. tasmaniensis.

Plate XV.—HYMENOPTERA.

Family Vespidae.