Fig. 371.—Trigonalys maculifrons Cam. i.l. Mexico.
This family is chiefly constituted by the very rare Insects contained in the genus Trigonalys, of which we have one species in Britain. Although, so far as appearance goes, they have little in common with the parasitic Hymenoptera, and look quite like members of the Aculeata, yet the late F. Smith found a species in the cells of Polistes lanio, thereby showing it to be of parasitic habits. Although some Aculeate Hymenoptera are also of parasitic habits, yet the characters of Trigonalys perhaps agree, on the whole, better with the Hymenoptera parasitica. The British species is very rare. The South American genus, Nomadina, looks still more like a bee, and the trochanters are even more imperfectly divided than they are in some of the Aculeate group, Nyssonides, the outer portion being merely a small piece imperfectly separated from the base of the femur.
Note.—The citation of Saint Augustine on p. [85] is made in the words used by Wasmann in Der Trichterwickler, eine naturwissenschaftliche Studie über den Thierinstinkt, 1884.
The authenticity of the passage we have adopted as the motto for this volume is somewhat doubtful. It is explained in an "admonitio ad lectorem" of the soliloquy, that this work is probably a compilation by a later writer, from two, or more, works of Saint Augustine. Father Wasmann has been so kind as to inform the writer that the idea of the passage quoted occurs frequently in the undoubted works of the Saint, as, for instance, de Civitate Dei, lib. xi. cap. 22; Serm. ccxiii. in traditione symboli II. cap. i.; contra Faustum, lib. xxi. cap. v. etc. The passage quoted is, however, the only one in which "angeli" and "vermiculi" are associated.
INDEX
Every reference is to the page: words in italics are names of genera or species; figures in italics indicate that the reference relates to systematic position; figures in thick type refer to an illustration; f. = and in following page or pages.
Abdomen, [109];
of Hymenoptera, [492] f.