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.
[Illustration: =Fig. 52.=--Life History of a Flower Wasp.
1. _Dielis formosa_ (Guérin). ♀. (1a.--Life size.)
2. „ „ Larva.
3. Pupal Cocoon, showing opening whence the wasp has emerged.
(“Agricultural Gazette,” N.S.W.)]
_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.
[Illustration: =Fig. 53.=--_Salius (Priocnemus)
bicolor_ (Fabr.).
Large sand-burrowing wasp, that attacks cicadas.
(“Agricultural Gazette,” N.S.W.)]
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.