This is the largest and finest species of the genus to which it belongs. Drury, contrary to his usual practice, is silent as to its habitat, and Fabricius states America generally. I have received it from Mr. Titian R. Peale of Philadelphia. That it is identical with the Vespa tricincta of Fabricius I am enabled to state by an examination of the individual contained in the Banksian Collection, now belonging to the LinnÆan Society of London, which was described by Fabricius.

TREMEX COLUMBA.

Plate XXXVIII. fig. 2.

FORMICA RUBRIPES.

Plate XXXVIII. fig. 3.

Drury referred this species to the Formica barbara of LinnÆus, which is not only distinct in the colour of the head, which is red, but also in having two knots at the base of the abdomen, whence it belongs to the genus Myrmica.

The reader will find some interesting general details relative to the habits of the exotic species of the family to which this insect belongs, in the following observations which were published in the preface to the third volume, in the former edition of this work.

"The various species of ants, cock-roaches, and other voracious vermin, are so numerous as to be one of the greatest plagues the collector abroad has to encounter, insomuch that it is barely possible to preserve dried insects, and other animals, with the utmost care and the closest boxes, much less living ones, which require light and air: for as soon as caterpillars are brought out of the woods, and placed within doors, with an intention of breeding them, they seem to be, as in fact they are, out of the order of nature, and quickly fall victims to the rapacity of those agents whose province it is to remove animal or vegetable bodies, which having arisen to maturity, or lost the principles of life, are on their progress toward a slow dissolution, a state of useless inanimation or noxious putrescence. Indeed among these none are more useful in this point of view than the ants; but, considered as noxious vermin, and capable of destroying animals, or, in many instances, of preventing and frustrating human industry, we know perhaps of none more formidable. These insects, whether considered as the efficient servants of nature, keeping clean and wholesome the face of the creation, or as the ministers of Almighty Power preserving a due equality between animals and vegetables, perform, without exemption or reserve, his high behests. Like the angel of heaven, they walk steadily forward in the line ordained them, and spare neither magnitude nor beauty, neither the living nor the dead, but sweep away all kinds of animal substances with undeviating rigour and rapacious perseverance.

"Sometimes they proceed, like those I have mentioned in the preface to my first volume, driving all the inhabitants out of a town in a few hours, to a scene of which Mr. Smeathman was an eye-witness; and in other instances, as within the last twenty years, in some of the Caribbee Islands, like a slow but irresistible fire, they gradually, in two or three years, take possession of the land, and carry death and destruction to every kind of animals; so that not only pigeons and fowls, lambs and kids, but even calves and foals, which have been brought forth in the night, have been destroyed before the rising of the sun; and the inhabitants themselves, though they placed the posts of their beds in troughs of water, were driven out of them by these inevitable disturbers. This slow but enormous increase of ants in some of the sugar islands was unknown before the conclusion of the last peace; since which time they seem, in conjunction with some other insects, to have taken possession of many valuable sugar estates, and, by sucking the canes, have rendered them incapable of yielding any of that rich juice from whence this vegetable salt is extracted.

"In consequence of this mischievous quality, estates which, by their usual produce, have cleared to the proprietors eight or ten thousand pounds a year, when overrun by these vermin, have not been able to pay the expense of cultivation, except the produce has been changed by planting cotton or indigo, which have been found to suffer much less from their depredations; but, unhappily, most of the planters were ruined before they could submit to give up the cultivation of sugar, which is by much the most profitable.

"It is not to be supposed, that hot countries are at all times infested to this degree. They never are, however, without an astonishing number of these insects, which no art, labour, or expense, can totally exclude from the dwellings of the inhabitants. The number of different species is not yet known, and is so great, added to the minuteness of most of them, that it probably never will be discovered with any degree of certainty. There are not less than fifteen or twenty species, which find their way into the houses. These are not only to be distinguished by their size, figure, and colour, but by their different properties. Some are near an inch long, from which, to that of being scarce visible to the naked eye, are various sizes. Some are long and slender, others short and thick; some are elegantly shaped and highly polished; while others are, according to vulgar apprehensions, deformed, armed with spines, and covered with bristly or coarse and rough skins. Some species also are black as the deepest jet; others of the deepest brown, or of different shades till they approach to yellow; and not a few are variegated, having some of the prismatic colours in full glow. They vary as much in their nature and dispositions: some destroy fresh collected plants; and, in spite of weights laid upon the books in which they are placed to dry, get in, cut the leaves and flowers in pieces, and carry them away. Others, of different species, attack all sorts of victuals, particularly sweet things, such as sugar and fruits. Mr. Smeathman has had large sugar-dishes emptied by these insects in one night, when the least opening has been left; and it is not easy to make any tin canister, or other vessel, close enough to exclude these insidious plunderers; so that the loss sustained in this article is often very great. Some of them will assail the side-boards, and cover every wine-glass that has had wine or punch left in it; nay, innumerable multitudes will even attack the liquors on your table, and, if you are not attentive, drown themselves in the very bowls and bottles before you. Some stragglers frequently disturb you by creeping over your skin, and interrupt your sleep or your meditations by biting, which, however, give pain but for a moment; while others, though of the smallest size, with a sort of malignant vengeance, creep under your clothes, and, by means of stings invisible to the unassisted eye, inject a most acrid venom, which causes a pain as sharp as a small spark of fire, lasting for some hours, and even a day or two after being stung, the pain of which is much increased by irritating the part. Some of the larger sorts also cause by their stings a pain which, for some moments, is scarcely less than that of a bee of the same size; but it ceases in a few minutes, without leaving any inflammation behind. The different manners of this large and sagacious tribe of insects are, according to my friend's account, exceedingly various and amusing, but much too long for this occasion; neither would it be proper for me to enter farther into an account of them, as that gentleman purposes to treat minutely on their various histories in his Voyages and Travels: a book which, he informs me, is in some forwardness, and will doubtless afford great entertainment and information to the curious part of mankind."

RAPHIGASTER VALIDUS.

Plate XXXVIII. fig. 4.

This fine insect was noticed in the synoptical appendix to the second volume, under the name of Cimex variegatus, the same name having been also inadvertently applied to the insect figured in Vol. I. Pl. 45. Another figure of the same insect, but with the wings closed, is given in the third volume, Pl. 45. Fig. 6. in the synoptical appendix of which volume it is noticed, under the name of Cimex validus. It is therefore probable that our author was not aware of the specific identity of the two figures. To avoid the inconvenience arising from having two species bearing the same name, Cimex variegatus, I have adopted the name proposed in the third volume.

TETTIGONIA SANGUINEA.

Plate XXXVIII. fig. 5. Natural Size.—6. Magnified.

FORMICA BIHAMATA.

Plate XXXVIII. fig. 7. Natural Size.—8. Magnified.