(Original photo. Burton.)]
Plate XV.—HYMENOPTERA.
The widespread Genus Vespa, though it is recorded from as far down as Java, is unknown in Australia. We have however allied species belonging to the genera Icaria and Polistes. Those of the genus Icaria are the smaller wasps, the largest well under ½ an inch in length; most of them are reddish brown, or mottled with black and yellow; the abdomen is contracted into a stalk at the base, then becomes rounded, with the apical segments small and telescopic, so that when retracted it looks as if it were damaged. They all form similar nests commencing with the usual stalk, but, unlike the larger Polistes, the cells follow on in rows, forming finger-like nests. Icaria gregaria, our commonest species, forms these slender nests up to six inches in length. It is a dull reddish brown wasp mottled with black on the thorax and legs, with the apex of the abdomen lightest in colour.
Some of the members of the Genus Polistes grow to a considerable size, and armed with a powerful sting are very formidable insects; several of the largest form small stalked nests on the under-side of fallen logs; when hunting for insects and turning over dead wood one is liable to disturb a family party and find it wise to beat a hasty retreat. They differ from the previous group in having no stalk to the abdomen, which is very slender at the base, rounded to the middle and tapers to a pointed apex. Polistes tasmaniensis, our most sociable species, is very fond of building her large nest (previously noticed) under one’s verandah, or the porch over the door, and is quite ready to attack any one when disturbed. It is one of the smallest species, measuring under ¾ of an inch in length; is of a general dark brown colour marked with reddish brown; the abdomen is irregularly banded, with the first basal band finest. Polistes tepidus, one of our largest wasps, is almost black, with face, tips of legs, and thorax marked with dark orange yellow, and the abdomen banded with rusty red. Polistes humilis is of an almost uniform yellowish brown tint, with the face marked with black. In the Queensland Museum there are some very large paper-nests of some undetermined wasps that have a regular comb-like structure containing thousands of cells, and which are several feet in length.
These curious wasps stand quite alone as the last group of the true Vespidae, and are a comparatively small family, comprising several distinctive genera containing altogether sixty species found in the Mediterranean region, South and North America, and Australia.
They are wasp-like in waist, with the antennae thickened toward the tips or clubbed; the wings contain two sub-marginal cells; and the feet are furnished with curious toothed or rather hooked claws. The European species are known to build nests in the ground, forming a tunnel ending in a clay cell in which the larvae live and are fed by the mother in the same manner as the true wasps forming the papery nests; others construct clay chambers attached to twigs.
Shuckard when he formed the typical Australian Genus Paragia named it “in allusion to its deceptive habit, which is precisely that of a Vespa.” Saussure wrote a monograph on the Masaridae forming the third part of the Vespidae published in 1856; Smith has also contributed to our knowledge of Australian species in the British Museum Catalogue 1857, and subsequently in several papers in the Entomological Society of London between 1864–1869.
Seventeen species have been described in the Genus Paragia, but nothing has been recorded about their habits or life history: several are described from Tasmania and New South Wales, but all the specimens in my collection come from the northern part of Australia.
Paragia decipiens was described and figured by Shuckard in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, 1837; it measures under ¾ of an inch in length, and is of a general black colour, with the front and sides of the thorax spotted with yellow, and the whole of the smooth rounded abdomen of the same bright colour except the base, which is black; the wings are smoky brown, with the nervures black. Paragia bicolor is a larger insect measuring nearly 1 inch in length; the head and thorax are black, and the abdomen bright metallic blue; the under surface and sides of the first three segments, and the base of the thorax, are marked with bright yellow.
The Australian region is rich in bees peculiar to the country; and while we have representatives of many of the foreign groups, yet several well-known genera, such as Apis, Bombus, Eucera, Colletes and Osmia, though ranging over the greater part of the world, are unknown in Australia.
The classification of the bees is still somewhat unsatisfactory. Latreille termed them Mellifera, honey gatherers, or Anthophila, lovers of flowers: Westwood and others, while keeping this as a group name, subdivided them into two large families, Andrenidae, short-tongued bees, and Apidae, long-tongued bees, dividing the last family into five smaller groups based upon their different structure and habits. The European bees have been since placed under six headings; while in Dalla Torre’s Catalogue dealing with the bees of the whole world, there are no less than fourteen sub-families. Most of our species have been described by Smith, in the British Museum Catalogue, Hymenoptera 1853; others in the Transactions of the Entomological Society 1862–68, and New Species, British Museum 1879. Cockerell (Ann. & Mag. Nat. History 1905) described a number of new species of our bees examined by him in the British Museum Collections, and added some interesting information on species already described; as many of these specimens were collected by Turner, Walker, and myself and sent to the British Museum, the Australian localities are given.
None of the short-tongued bees store up honey, but form cells or burrows in the ground, walls, cavities in rocks, or the stems of plants, in which they form a row of cells or little chambers each containing an egg and sufficient bee bread for the development of the larva. Some of these bees are parasitic, and live at the expense of the industrious species, crawling into the open nests and laying their eggs upon the food supply of the rightful occupant; these are popularly known as “cuckoo bees.”
The members of the Genus Prosopis are handsome, shining black or steel blue bees, marked with bright yellow upon the face and thorax. With the additions that Cockerell has made to the list, nearly fifty species are described from Australia, and a number are common in the vicinity of Sydney. Prosopis vidua, our largest species, but considerably smaller than the honey bee, is found upon the crimson flowers of the bottlebrush (Callistemon). It has the head and thorax black, with a yellow spot on the face and the base of each fore wing; the abdomen is bright metallic blue. A smaller undetermined species may be often noticed hovering round and entering holes in the soft sandstone rocks where it appears to nest. Prosopis metallica, a shining black species, smaller than P. vidua, with face and shoulders broadly marked with yellow, was bred out of a row of half a dozen brown papery cocoons placed in an empty burrow formed in the branch of a wattle tree by the larva of some longicorn beetle.
Lamprocolletes plumosus and several other species of the genus frequent the flowers of the Leptospermum. It is a handsome dark brown bee, under ½ an inch in length. The abdomen has a metallic sheen, and the head and thorax are clothed with fine down.
Hylaeoides concinnus is a very remarkable looking black bee, with clouded smoky wings, marked with bright red on the face, and with bands of the same colour on the base and tip of the abdomen. I have usually captured this bee upon bushes; it bears such a decided superficial resemblance to a small clay nesting (Odynerus) wasp, that this may be a case of protective mimicry. The Genus Paracolletes has been added to by Cockerell, who describes twelve new species in his recent papers. Paracolletes crassipes was described by Smith from W. Australia, but it is common on low scrub in the early part of the year on the Blue Mountains N.S.W. It is a handsome black bee about ½ an inch in length, with the head and thorax thickly clothed with pale buff hairs, and the abdominal segments banded on the upper surface with dull brown.
Gastropsis (Oestropsis) pubescens is nearly as large as a honey bee, with curious thickened antennae, slender at the basal joint. It is somewhat flattened on the upper surface and clothed all over with a dense coat of pale buff coloured hairs, only showing indistinct brown bars on the abdomen. I know nothing about the habits of this curious bee; it has been described from Western and South Australia.
The Genus Halictus is represented by about thirty described species; nothing has been recorded about the habits of our species, but most of the European form galleries in the ground connected with a large excavation or chamber in which the larvae are placed in cells. Halictus floralis is a small bee with a reddish brown body; the front of the head, antennae, legs, front and middle of thorax are light yellow. H. bicingulatus is black with the legs reddish brown, and the segmental divisions of the abdomen light coloured. They are found on grass and field flowers. Nomia australica, under ½ an inch in length, is common on the flowers of the Leptospermum; it is a dull, metallic blue bee with antennae, labrum, legs, and extreme tip of abdomen reddish brown. The latter has a greenish sheen, and is somewhat heart shaped, terminating in a fine point. Cockerell has added six new species to our list, most of which are described from Queensland.
Exoneura froggatti is a little bee not much over ¼ of an inch in length, black with smoky rings, reddish legs and a curiously sack-shaped reddish brown abdomen, broadest near the apex, but contracted to a point at the tip. I have frequently cut them out of small burrows in the dead stems of wattle trees. Exoneura bicolor is a slightly larger species, with a darker, broader abdomen, and it comes from Queensland. Cockerell has added three more new species, all from the neighbourhood of Sydney. The great Carpenter Bees of the Genus Xylocopa are represented by four species, which are more common in Queensland and the northern parts of Australia; but one species at least, Xylocopa aestuans, ranges southwards. It is of the typical broad form with dark coloured wings; the upper surface of the thorax is clothed with yellow, other portions with black hairs. Xylocopa bryorum is a larger species measuring about 1 inch in length, with a wing expanse of nearly two; the whole of the upper surface is thickly clothed with golden yellow hairs, the brown beneath giving it a greenish tint. The wings are light brown with black nervures, and the hairs on the legs and under-surface are dark brown to black.
The closely allied Carpenter Bees of the Genus Lestis are peculiar to Australia. The male of Lestis bombylans measures over ½ an inch in length, and is of a rich metallic green, with the front of the face striped with white; the thorax and base of abdomen are clothed with golden hairs, those on the front of the thorax forming a double bar; the hairs on the front pair of legs yellow, those on the hind pair black; the wings are brown with faint iridescence. The female has the face silvery, but no yellow down upon the thorax; the abdomen is deep purple; and the wings almost opaque, varying from dark brown to rich metallic violet colour in different lights. The second species, Lestis aerata, is slightly larger, with the stripe on the face of the male yellow, and all the legs fringed with yellow pubescence, while the female is of a uniform brassy green, with wings light coloured, more like those of the males, and only showing a slight iridescence. Both species have a wide range; those about Sydney form their nests in the dead flower stalks of the grass trees (Xanthorrhoea). It begins by boring a circular hole 3½ lines in diameter towards the centre, then turns downward, excavating all the pith to a depth of about 4 inches, and then works out about the same distance above the opening, so that the full length of the chamber is 8 inches, with an average of ½ an inch in diameter. This is divided off into a row of cells, each about ½ an inch in length, with a ball of bee bread and an egg deposited in the far end; each cell is separated by a stout wad of triturated pith. I have never found the centre of the chamber in front of the opening closed up with cells, a space always being left unoccupied on both sides. The larvae are of the usual cylindrical form, attenuated at the extremities, and of a dull white colour, about ½ an inch in length, and can be found in all stages of development in November. The pretty banded bees, formerly known under the name of Anthophora, but now placed in the Genus Podalirius, are world wide in their range. All our species have the head and thorax clothed with a dense coat of buff or pale yellow hairs, and the body banded with black and blue of various tints. Podalirius emendatus, our largest species, is found on the northern rivers of N.S. Wales and is common in Queensland; it has the head and thorax covered with rusty red pubescence, and the low abdominal bands broad. P. cingulatus is slightly smaller, with the pubescence pale buff, the abdominal bands much the same; P. pulcher, much smaller, with the pubescence darker, is our commonest species about Sydney. P. aeruginosus has the whole of the abdomen as well as the head and thorax thickly clothed with a dull greenish yellow pubescence. My specimens of this species come from Mackay, Queensland. Five new species are added to this genus by Cockerell.
The Genus Crocisa contains a few very handsome moderate sized bees of a uniform black colour with smoky rings, and brightly marked bodies. Crocisa albo-maculata, our largest species, has the face, upper and under surface, and legs thickly marked and spotted with white pubescence. It is a somewhat rare insect about Sydney. C. lamprosoma is a smaller bee with the marks and spots pale blue, those upon the abdomen forming a more regular pattern of four well defined rows. In C. nitidula the pubescence forms rich metallic blue spots and blotches, most brilliant on the upper surface of the abdomen, where they run right round the basal segment and form a regular row of short bands on either side but not meeting on the dorsal surface. It is found in New South Wales and Queensland.
Plate XVI.—HYMENOPTERA.
Family Apidae.
Family Andrenidae.
Family Eumenidae.
Family Sphegidae.
13. Ammophila impatiens (Smith).
Family Philanthidae.
15. Cerceris sp.
Family Vespidae.
16. Polistes tepidus (Fabr.).
(Original photo. Burton.)
Plate XVI.—HYMENOPTERA.
The great Genus Megachile contains the leaf-cutting bees, so called from the curious habit they have of cutting circular pieces out of the leaves of growing plants with which they line their nests; these are sometimes built in excavations in old walls, or dead wood, or simply constructed like a cigar under stones. About 30 species have been described from Australia; the two largest are Megachile monstrosa, figured in Brenchley’s “Cruise of the Curaçoa,” published in 1873; and M. blackburni, described by me from specimens obtained from Central Australia by the Elder Exploring Expedition. Megachile mystacea, a medium sized species found in Queensland and Northern Australia, is also recorded from India; it is black, with the head and face clothed with silvery hairs, and the whole of the abdomen covered with rich reddish brown pubescence; while M. pictiventris has the hind margin of the thorax clothed with silvery hairs, the apical half of the under-surface with reddish brown hairs which extend to form a fringe round the extremity. M. chrysopyga is a native of Tasmania and Victoria. I found a nest of this species under a stone in the latter State, which could be lifted up bodily without breaking. It was about the shape and length of an ordinary cigar, and consisted of about nine cells containing the larvae. These cells, like a series of shallow thimbles, were enfolded in the outer shell of looser leaf.
The Genus Coelioxys comprises a number of curious bees that in general appearance are so very like the “leaf cutters,” that a French naturalist having bred one out of a Megachile’s nest described it as the male form of the species. They are now known to be parasitic in the nests of these bees in Europe, so that the similarity in form may be of great protective value to them. They differ chiefly in the form of the abdomen, which in the males is produced into forked spines at the extremity, and in the females into a sharp point.
I have two undetermined species in my collection from Queensland obtained some years ago, but until last year the presence of this group had not been recorded from Australia. Cockerell recorded (1905) two species from this country; Coelioxys albolineata, measuring about ⅓ of an inch in length, comes from Queensland, and is of the usually grey and brown tints.
The last group we have to deal with are the Australian stingless honey bees, belonging to the Genus Trigona, which range all over Australia. They collect quantities of dark coloured somewhat acid flavoured honey, which they store up in little jug-shaped cells of dark brown wax, forming an irregular comb attached to the walls of the cavity in which they have constructed their hive by a network of irregular rods of wax. They generally choose a cavity in the heart of a large gum-tree with a small opening from the outside, and before commencing to make their comb they plaster up all the cracks and inequalities of the chamber with the sticky sap or gum of the Turpentine Tree (Syncarpia). This chamber is usually about the size of a man’s head, and the comb as a rule contains not more than a pint or two of honey. This is the typical nest found in N.S. Wales, but in the tropical scrubs of North Queensland many of them form a small funnel or spout projecting round the opening, composed of a waxy-substance an inch or more in length. As the green tree ants often capture these bees and are always swarming over the tree trunks, this is probably a necessary protection. The honey gatherers of Trigona carbonaria, our common species, are black, thickset little bees measuring about ⅙ of an inch in length. They are fearless little creatures when at work, and will allow themselves to be picked off the flowers without any attempt to fly. Several species have been recently added to our fauna, and though Dalla-Torre in his Catalogue places the members of the genus Trigona in the Melipona, which until then had only contained the allied stingless bees of South America and the tropics, Cockerell retains them in the old genus, describing a new species from Port Essington, and recording a species known in Ceylon (Trigona canifrons) also from the north coast of Australia.