CHAPTER IV
The Hymenoptera are perhaps the most interesting order of insects, their brilliant colours, great activity, and unparalleled instincts rendering them alike attractive to the young collector and scientific entomologist. They are, however, not very numerous in New Zealand, several of the most important families being completely absent; in fact, with the exception of the ants, there are no social Hymenoptera native to this country. The information I here give in connection with these insects does not adequately represent the large amount of interest which can be derived from their investigation, and I must therefore refer the reader to those admirable works by Sir J. Lubbock on Ants and by Huber on Bees, which cannot fail to interest all who read them.
Family Andrenidæ.
Dasycolletes hirtipes (?) (Plate [III]., fig. 1).
This is the true native bee of New Zealand, and may be taken abundantly during the whole of the summer. Its nest is constructed in crevices in the bark of trees, &c., the insect very frequently selecting the spaces between the boards of outhouses, where the loud buzzing noise made by the perfect bees when emerging from their retreat at once arrests our attention. These nests consist of about ten oval cells, formed of clay, and neatly smoothed within. They are all constructed by a single female, which also provisions them with honey and pollen, depositing an egg in each. The larva, after consuming the food, changes into a pupa, from which the perfect insect emerges about January. If the reader will imagine a great number of these nests closely packed together, the formation and storing of the cells being performed by a number of sterile individuals (workers), while the eggs are deposited by a single female (queen), he will have a fair idea of the economy of the social bees and wasps, whose wonderful instincts attain their maximum in the well-known hive-bee, successfully introduced and cultivated in various parts of the country.
Closely allied to this species is Dasycolletes purpureus (?) (Fig. 10), which forms its nests in sand-banks, its cylindrical holes having a great resemblance to the burrows of Cincindela tuberculata, which frequently occur in the same situation.
Family Sphegidæ.
Pompilus fugax (Plate [III]., fig. 2).
This is a very abundant insect, and may be observed flying about on any fine day during the summer, occasionally stopping to examine leaves and crevices in the bark of trees, where it is looking for the unfortunate spiders, which constitute the food of its progeny. The larva is a fat apodal grub, and may be found in the cells constructed by the perfect insect, which usually selects a large cylindrical hole in a log, previously drilled out by a weevil. Into this burrow she pushes a large quantity of spiders, which she has previously captured and paralyzed with her venomous sting. When her nest is properly provisioned she deposits an egg in it, closes the hole with a neat plug of clay, and leaves the larva to quietly consume its half-dead companions. Each female, no doubt, forms a large number of these cells during the summer. While cutting up old logs for Coleoptera, the entomologist will not infrequently come across these nests, when the insects may be found in various stages of development. Unfortunately, however, the sight which usually meets his eye is a large number of legs and other fragments of spiders, the fugax having long since deserted the burrow, and being very probably engaged in forming others in a neighbouring tree. These insects are very ferocious, and will attack spiders which considerably exceed them in size. On one occasion I noticed a very large one at rest in the centre of its web, which was suddenly noticed by a passing fugax, which immediately sprang upon its back, and, in spite of violent movements on the part of the spider, twisted her abdomen dexterously round and stung her victim in the centre of the thorax, between the insertions of the legs. This produced almost instantaneous paralysis in the spider; but it was apparently too large for the fugax to carry away to her nest, as I saw the unfortunate creature hanging helplessly in its web some hours after the occurrence.