SPHEX, in natural history, a genus of insects of the order Hymenoptera. Mouth with an entire jaw, the mandibles horny, incurved, toothed ; lip horny, membrana ceous at the tip ; four feelers ; antenna with about ten articulations ; wings, in each sex, plane, incumbent, and not fold ed; sting pungent, and concealed within the abdomen. There are about one hun dred and fifty species, divided into sec tions. A. antenna setaceous : an en tire lip and no tongue. B. antenna fili form ; lip emarginate, with a bristle on each side ; tongue inflected, trifid. The insects of this genus are the most savage and rapacious of this class of beings: they attack whatever comes in their way, and by means of their poisonous sting over come and devour others far beyond their own size. Those belonging to section B are found chiefly on umbellate plants : the larva is without feet, soft, and inhabits the body of some other insect, on whose juices it exists : the pupa has rudiments of wings.
S. maculata, is found in England. Tho rax spotted ; first segment of the abdo men with a white dot on each side ; se cond, edged with white. See Plate IV. Entomology, fig. 6.
S. figulus, an inhabitant of Upend, is smooth and black segments of the abdo men at the edges and lip lucid. It is found in holes of wooden partitions, aban doned by other insects; these it cleanses by gnawing round them, and, placing a piece of moist clay at the bottom sticks a • spider upon it ; in the body of this spider it deposits its eggs, and then closes up the entrance with clay, and leaves it to be devoured by the larva.
S. spirifex, is black ; thorax hairy, im maculate; petiole of one joint yellow, as long as the abdomen. This insect is found in Egypt, and in several parts of Europe, in cylindrical cavities, wrought within like a honey-comb, on the sides of cliffs, and in the mud walls of cot tages.
S. figulus, is one of the species men tioned by Dr. Shaw This insect, having found some convenient cavity, seizes a spider, and having killed it, deposits it at the bottom ; then laying her egg in it, she closes up the orifice ofthe cavity with clay ; the larva, which resembles the maggot of a bee, having devoured the spider, spins itself up in a dusky silken web, and changes into a chrysalis, out of which, within a certain number of days, proceeds the complete insect. The fe male of this species prepares several se parate holes, or nests, in each of which she places a dead insect and an egg ; each cell costing her the labour of about two days.