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 {34}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).