The Hymenoptera Aculeata of the British Islands A Descriptive Account of the Families, Genera, and Species indigenous to Great Britain and Ireland, with Notes as to habits, localities, habitats, &c

Abstract

A GREAT number of books are published at presen relating to the more popular orders of insects, especially British butterflies and moths. Some entomologists however, devote their attention to the more varied fauna of warmer climates, and publish valuable monographs on the insects of Central America, Asia, or Africa. We are glad to find that others make the less fashionable, if equally interesting, orders of British insects their study:, and although there are still many groups, and even whole orders of British insects of which we do not at present possess any trustworthy monograph, their number is lessening year by year. Mr. Saunders deserves special praise for his labours in this direction. After publishing one or two useful works on foreign insects, he turned his attention exclusively to British entomology. He has given us a work on British Hemiptera, which is to be followed by one on British Homoptera; while the book before us relates to the British Hymenoptera Aculeata, the section of the vast order Hymenoptera which includes the bees, wasps, and ants, in which the ovipositor is usually modified into a sting in the females, though in some families, as in the first family of ants, the typical Formicidæ, the insects do not sting, though some of them bite very severely.

The Hymenoptera Aculeata of the British Islands. A Descriptive Account of the Families, Genera, and Species indigenous to Great Britain and Ireland, with Notes as to habits, localities, habitats, &c.

By Edward Saunders 8vo. Pp.viii + 391. (London: Reeve and Co., 1896.)