This group includes some of the largest and most powerful of the Aculeate Hymenoptera. Its members are usually hairy Insects with thick legs, the colour being black, more or less variegated with bands or spots of red or yellow; the hind body is elongate, has only a very short pedicel, and in the male is usually terminated by three projecting spines. The pronotum is of variable dimensions, but its front angles are always co-adapted with the points of insertion of the front wings. The nervuration of the front wings is confined to the basal part, the extensive apical or outer area possessing no nervures. There is frequently a great difference in the size of the two sexes of the same species, the female being very much larger than the other sex. The larvae, so far as is known, devour those of Lamellicorn Coleoptera. [Illustration: Fig. 40.—_Scolia haemorrhoidalis_ ♀. Europe.] Fabre has investigated the habits of some of the species of Scoliides found in France, and has informed us that their means of subsistence consists of larvae of the larger Lamellicorn beetles, _Cetonia_, _Oryctes_, _Anoxia_, and _Euchlora_; these beetles belong to very different divisions of the Lamellicornia, but they have in common the fact that their larvae are of subterranean habits, living in the earth or in accumulations of débris in which there is a large proportion of vegetable matter or roots. The female _Scolia_ penetrates into the ground in order to find the Lamellicorn larvae necessary as food for its progeny. _Scolia bifasciata_ {98}attacks the larvae of several species of _Cetonia_, and _S._ (_Colpa_) _interrupta_ chooses the larvae of the chafers _Anoxia villosa_ and _A. matutinalis_. The mother _Scolia_ enters the ground in August or September, and having found a suitable larva stings it and deposits an egg on the ventral surface of the prey; the paralysed larva is left where it was found, no attempt being made to place it in a special receptacle. The egg is placed on the ventral surface, well behind the feet, under a mass of matter in the alimentary canal. Shortly after being hatched the young destroyer penetrates with its head the skin of the victim, and in this position commences to feed; it is necessary that it should obtain its food without killing the _Cetonia_ larva, for it cannot prosper on decaying food, so that if the _Cetonia_ larva die the _Scolia_ larva likewise perishes; the latter, accordingly, does not withdraw its head from the interior of the victim, but remains always in the same position, as it grows larger extending its head forwards into the front part of the interior of its victim; the internal organs of the latter are consumed in a systematic order so as to delay bringing about its death till the last moment, and thus all the interior of the _Cetonia_ larva is appropriated till nothing remains but an empty skin. By a series of experiments, Fabre showed how essential it is that this apparently revolting operation should be carried