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XXII. Notes o?i the Habits of Australian Hymenoptera. 
By F. Smith, Esq. 
[Read May 5th, 1851.] 
On the Habits of Lestis Bombylans. 
(New Holland.) 
Mr. Ker, a gentleman who resided some years in Australia, 
informed me that this insect is very common in all parts of the 
country. He found it inhabiting the hollow stem of a Zamia. It 
was at that time in a dormant state, it being the winter season. 
The entrance to the tube was rounded like the mouth of a flute. 
The stem of the Zamia or grass tree is straight and pithy, and 
easily excavated. The cells, about a dozen in number, were 
placed one above the other, separated by slight partitions. 
I will embrace this opportunity to correct an error which has 
crept into all the works in which this genus is described or alluded 
to. Fabricius, in his Entomologia Systematica, describes under the 
genus Apis two bees from New Holland — Apis bombylans and 
Apis muscaria — both in the cabinet of Sir Joseph Banks. St. 
Fargeau, in the 10th vol. Encycl. Meth., and also in his later 
work, the Histoire Naturelle des Insectes, has described the Apis 
muscaria as the female of his genus Lestis, and A. bombylans as the 
male. Now on examining the original specimens in the Banksian 
Cabinet, I find the Apis muscaria is a male, of the genus Xylocopa ; 
and A. bombylans a female, of the genus Lestis. St. Fargeau has also 
committed another error by reversing the characteristics of the 
sexes ; those given as the male belong to the female, and (vice 
versa) both are however too general to aid much in discrimi- 
nating the species. I will endeavour to remedy this insufficiency 
by giving more tangible characters, and by describing a second 
species of this genus. 
N 2 
180 Mr. F. Smith's Notes on 
Sp. 1. Lestis bombylaus. 
Apis bombijlans, Fab. Ent. Syst. 2, 338, 104, $. 
Centris bombylans, Fab. Syst. Piez. 358, 19. 
Female (length 6-7 lines), dark blue-green ; the face and 
cheeks clothed with a thin silvery white pubescence; the thorax 
is strongly punctured, except the disk, which is smooth and 
shining ; the wings dark fuscous, with a violet reflection ; and the 
apex of the abdomen has a fringe of white pubescence. The 
pubescence on the legs is black. 
Male (6-7 lines), brassy green : head ; the clypeus has an oblong 
white stripe, broadest towards the base of the antennae ; also a 
narrow white line along the inner margin of the eyes, reaching 
their vertex. The thorax has two triangular patches of yellow 
pubescence, separated by a smooth space the exact width of the 
distance between the eyes ; a patch of the same colour on the 
sides of the breast, and on the tubercles; the wings slightly fus- 
cous; the anterior and intermediate tibia and tarsi have on their 
posterior margins a pale yellow fringe ; that on the posterior legs 
is black. The apex of the abdomen has some long dark fuscous 
pubescence. 
Sp. 2. Lestis ceratus, new sp. 
Female (7-8 lines), brassy green ; the pubescence on the face 
pale yellow, the thorax punctured as in the preceding species ; 
the wings slightly fuscous ; the pubescence at the apex of the 
abdomen is pale yellow. 
Male (7-8 lines), brassy ; the face is marked as in the pre- 
ceding species, but the colour, instead of being white, is yellow ; 
the patches of pubescence are situated as in the preceding, but 
are much more dense, and of a bright yellow ; wings hyaline, 
slightly fuscous ; all the legs are fringed with bright yellow 
pubescence. 
On the Habits of Abispa, a solitary Australian Wasp. 
Mr. Ker also informed me that this wasp constructs a nest of 
clay ; it is thimble-shaped, about three inches in diameter, and 
three and three-quarters in height; the rounded end is upper- 
the Habits of Australian Hymenoptera. 181 
most. About the centre of the bottom flat surface the wasp con- 
structs a most beautiful, funnel-shaped entrance, the pipe of 
which is continued a short way within the shell of the nest ; at 
the top a single layer of cells are constructed without regularity 
of form or disposal ; only a single wasp was observed either 
building or furnishing the nest. Unluckily the nest, which Mr. 
Ker describes as being one of the most beautiful he ever saw, was 
broken on the voyage to this country. 
The following passage, in Mitchell's Expedition into Eastern 
Australia (vol. i. p. 104), can hardly refer to this species, as it 
appears to have been some gregarious wasp by which the travel- 
lers were attacked. 
" At seventeen miles we entered a plain, where grew trees of 
the Acacia pendula, and we traversed it in the most elongated di- 
rection, or to the south-west. On entering the wood beyond, a 
sudden extreme pain in my thigh made me shout, before I was 
aware of the cause. A large insect had fastened upon me, and 
on looking back I perceived Souter, ' the doctor,' defending him- 
self from several insects of the same kind. He told me that I 
had passed near a tree from which their nest was suspended: and 
it appeared that this had been sufficient to provoke the attack of 
these saucy insects, who were provided with the largest stings I 
had ever seen. The pain I felt was extreme, and the effect so 
permanent, that when I alighted in the evening from my horse, 
on that leg, not thinking of the circumstance, I fell to the ground, 
the muscles having been generally affected. The wound was 
marked by a blue circular spot, as large as a sixpence, for several 
months." 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. 
Plate XVI. fig. 1. Polistes lanio ; 2. Trigonalys compressa ; 3. Nest of a wasp 
formed of clay ; 4. Clay nest of Abispa ; 5. Abispa ephippiuml