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.
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.