HABITAT: Jamaica.
The colours of this insect appear to have been faded. Head red brown,
having on the top a small moveable horn, like a bristle, which the insect
can raise at pleasure. Eyes dark. Thorax and abdomen dark brown. Anus
white. The ends of the anterior wings are red brown; from whence, to the
shoulders, they appear of a dead black, spotted with small white spots;
but when the insect was living, probably the black part was of a fine
mazarine blue. The external edges of the posterior wings are transparent;
the abdominal edges white, and the middle part black, spotted with white,
like the superior. Breast, beak, and legs, red brown. Abdomen, on the
under side the same, being edged with scarlet.
This insect has a white substance issuing from the anus resembling the
downy part of a feather, or that which joins the quill.--Add. vol. 2.
{76}SCOLIA? MUTILLÆFORMIS.
Plate XXXVII. fig. 4.
ORDER: Hymenoptera. SECTION: Fossores? FAMILY: Scoliidæ?
GENUS. SCOLIA? _Fabr. Latr._ Sphex, _Linn. Drury_.
SCOLIA? MUTILLÆFORMIS. Nigra, capite thoraceque fulvo pilosis, alarum
apicibus fuscis. (Long. Corp. 7½ lin.)
SYN. Sphex mutillæformis, _Drury_, _App. vol._ 2.
HABITAT: Senegal.
Head and thorax red brown, and hairy. The former furnished with two jaws,
and tongueless. Eyes and antennæ black, the latter shorter than the
thorax. Wings transparent; the anterior being cloudy at their
extremities, and along the anterior edges. Abdomen, and hinder part of
the thorax, black and hairy. All the legs full of bristles; the hinder
ones having two long spines at the tarsi and tibial joints. One of the
sexes is much larger than the other.
Mr. Kirby (Monographia Apum Angliæ, Vol. II. p. 377.) has given this figure
as a synonym of Andrena thoracica. This can however scarcely be correct,
for not only does the locality given by Drury seem sufficiently to indicate
a species distinct from our English insect, but the colour of the head is
also different. Moreover, it appears to me that the description given by
Drury, united to the curved antennæ which appear to be faithfully
represented in the figure, and especially the character of the legs, are
evidently intended for a fossorial rather than a melliferous Hymenopterous
insect.