THE EUMENES

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A wasp-like garb of motley black and yellow; a slender and graceful figure; wings not spread out flat, when resting, but folded lengthwise in two; the abdomen a sort of chemist's retort, which swells into a gourd and is fastened to the thorax by a long neck, first distending into a pear, then shrinking to a thread; a leisurely and silent flight; lonely habits. There we have a summary sketch of the Eumenes. My part of the country possesses two species: the larger, Eumenes Amedei, Lep., measures nearly an inch in length; the other, Eumenes pomiformis, Fabr., is a reduction of the first to the scale of one-half. (I include three species promiscuously under this one name, that is to say, Eumenes pomiformis, Fabr., E. bipunctis, Sauss., and E. dubius, Sauss. As I did not distinguish between them in my first investigations, which date a very long time back, it is not possible for me to ascribe to each of them its respective nest. But their habits are the same, for which reason this confusion does not injuriously affect the order of ideas in the present chapter.—Author's Note.)