Volume 1

The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma / edited by W.T. Blanford, A.E. Shipley, assisted by A.K. Marshall. Hymenoptera. Vol.I, Wasps and bees. Vol.II, Ants and cuckoo-wasps / by C.T. Bingham. Vol. III, Ichneumonidae:-I. Ichneumones Deltoidei / by Claude Morley.

Date:: 1897-1913

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma / edited by W.T. Blanford, A.E. Shipley, assisted by A.K. Marshall. Hymenoptera. Vol.I, Wasps and bees. Vol.II, Ants and cuckoo-wasps / by C.T. Bingham. Vol. III, Ichneumonidae:-I. Ichneumones Deltoidei / by Claude Morley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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$INTEODUCTION. HYMENOPTERA. Trna Order Hymenoptera comprises the Sawflies, the Gallflies, the Ichneumons the Ants, the Sand- and Wood-wasps, the Wasps 'Ti nttenSy admitted that Hymenoptera have a right to be considered the most highly developed mentally « all insects Certain forms, as the ants, the social bees, and wasps hve m large communities, have a regular and organized division of classes a,nd labour, and frequently maintain complex social relations with insects of other orde/s that, as guests or parasites, harbour m *^ThrH^enoptera are distinguished from all other insects by the following general characters:— , ^, i. Mandibles always present and conspicuous, even when the rest of the oral parts are more or less changed and abnormal, in the hieher forms, the thorax and abdomen are remarkably modiiied. The first segment of the abdomen is separated from the remaining sesments by a complex and extremely flexible joint and is united to the posterior portion of the thorax, forming with it a consoh- dated mass, which has appropriately been called the alitrunk by Dr Sharp Wings four, membranous, with comparatively tew nervures, enclosing spaces or cells irregular in shape and limited in number; the posterior wings smaller than the anterior. Abdomen in the female furnished, at its apex, with a saw, borer, ovipositor, or sting. , , , i r -i- i Larva in the more highly developed genera and families always vermiform and footless, but in some of the lower forms with thoracic and abdominal legs, the latter frequently numerous. Pupa inactive, the parts as in the imago, but more or less colom-less and enveloped in a thin delicate membrane. The head of a hymenopterous insect is quite free from the thorax and often remarkably mobile. It varies but little in shape : the vertex (figs. 1, 2, & 3, a) is usually more or less convex and transverse, very often broad and subquadrate; the chee/c (fig. 1, 6) lies behind the eye, and when the lower rim of the latter does not extend down to 'the base of the mandibles it includes the space between the eyes and the mandibles; the comjjound eyes{i\g. l,c: figs. 2 & 3, d, 'd) occupy the sides of the head, and are built up generally of many facets, but in some of the ants are reduced to one facet. On the vertex (sometimes a little below it) are placed$