210 Annals of the South African Museum. 



EARRANA RECTINERVIS, sp. nov. 



5 only. A small aud slender, somewhat dull, rufo-testaceous 

 species, with the maudibular apices and flagellum except basally, alone 

 black ; face, vertical orbits broadly and a subapical flagellar band, 

 white ; terebra slender, half length of abdomen and, like the hind 

 tarsi, apically iufuscate. Head vertical and evanescent behind the 

 prominent eyes ; face strongly transverse, finely shagreened and not 

 discreted from the convex aud apically rounded clypeus. Antennae 

 as long as the body. Notauli and sternauli deeply impressed ; meta- 

 thorax elongate and somewhat narrow, evenly shagreened throughout 

 with a very weak central and distinct apical, straight transcarina ; 

 petiolar area short and nearly smooth. Scutellum small, dull and 

 nearly smooth, only basally carinate. Abdomen finely shagreened 

 throughout with basal segment nearly smooth, fully twice longer than 

 apically broad. Legs long and very slender. Wings somewhat 

 narrow, with the disco-cubital nervure perfectly straight ; areolet half 

 as broad again as high, its apical uervure wanting, though indicate* I ; 

 nervellus postfurcal, centrally intercepted. Length, 7 mm. 

 Mfongosi in Zululand, April, 1916, W. E. Jones. 



SUBTRIBE CEYPTINI. 



In view of the considerable literature likely to arise when the 

 Ichneumonidae of Africa come to be more fully collected, it were well 

 to here point out that the distinctions between the subtribes Mesostenini 

 and Cryptini (which together constitute the tribe Cryptides of the 

 subfamily Cryptiuae) are extremely obscure and consist solely in the 

 conformation of the alar areolet. The Cryptinae, as a whole, are 

 the least specialised and, consequently, most difficult group of the 

 entire Ichneumonidae. In the palaearctic fauna it is sufficient to 

 describe this areolet (as is done in my Ichn. Brit, ii, 1907, pp. 258 

 and 266) as small and quadrate in the former subtribe, pentagonal 

 and of normal size in the latter ; but throughout the tropics the 

 Mesostenini show much greater variability in this respect, which is 

 still our sole guide to differentiation, and it is misleading to state, 

 as does Cameron of his genus Steuomeris (Ann. S. Afr. Mus. v, 1906, 

 p. 154), that "the form of the areolet does not give always a trust- 

 worthy distinction between the two " ; for if such be the case, they 

 must be merged. That there is a constant, though subtle, distinction 

 I am convinced ; and the already enormous ere long, overwhelming- 

 number of the world's species in both these subtribes renders it 

 convenient to retain them apart. The test to which I subject indi- 

 viduals is a (more or less) regularly pentagonal areolet of variable 



