They are wasp-like in waist, with the antennae thickened toward the tips or clubbed; the wings contain two sub-marginal cells; and the feet are furnished with curious toothed or rather hooked claws. The European species are known to build nests in the ground, forming a tunnel ending in a clay cell in which the larvae live and are fed by the mother in the same manner as the true wasps forming the papery nests; others construct clay chambers attached to twigs. Shuckard when he formed the typical Australian Genus _Paragia_ named it “in allusion to its deceptive habit, which is precisely that of a Vespa.” Saussure wrote a monograph on the Masaridae forming the third part of the Vespidae published in 1856; Smith has also contributed to our knowledge of Australian species in the British Museum Catalogue 1857, and subsequently in several papers in the Entomological Society of London between 1864–1869. Seventeen species have been described in the Genus _Paragia_, but nothing has been recorded about their habits or life history: several are described from Tasmania and New South Wales, but all the specimens in my collection come from the northern part of Australia. _Paragia decipiens_ was described and figured by Shuckard in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, 1837; it measures under ¾ of an inch in length, and is of a general black colour, with the front and sides of the thorax spotted with yellow, and the whole of the smooth rounded abdomen of the same bright colour except the base, which is black; the wings are smoky brown, with the nervures black. _Paragia bicolor_ is a larger insect measuring nearly 1 inch in length; the head and thorax are black, and the abdomen bright metallic blue; the under surface and sides of the first three segments, and the base of the thorax, are marked with bright yellow. Family 22. Bees. ANTHOPHILA or APIDAE. The Australian region is rich in bees peculiar to the country; and while we have representatives of many of the foreign groups, yet several well-known genera, such as _Apis_, _Bombus_, _Eucera_, _Colletes_ and _Osmia_, though ranging over the greater part of the world, are unknown in Australia.