OF CERTAIN CHALCIDID^E AND ICHNEUMONIDiE. 63 



Fam. CHALCIDID^. 

 Gen. Anthophobabia, Newp. 



Char. Gen.* Fern. Caput thorace latius. Antenna 6-articulatas (?), pilosae; articulis 2do 3tio 4to 

 5toque subaequalibus, 6to clavam elongato-ovalem efformante. Thorax abdomenque longitudine 

 aequales. Alee vena mediana bifida. Tarsi 5-articulati. 



Mas. Antenna 4-articulatag ; articulo basali arcuato, magnopere dilatato, inferne excavato ; 2do cylindrico, 

 3tio magno globoso, 4to elongato-ovali. Oculi stemmatosi. Alee abbreviatae. 



As the females of this species are the most numerous, and are most likely to be met 

 with, I have regarded this sex as affording good generic characters, although those of the 

 male are the most extraordinary. The name I propose for the species is 



Anthophobabia betusa ; Fern. (Tab. VIII. fig. 2.) JEneo-viridis, capite magno, oculis 

 compositis nigris, abdomine nitido ovali, alis magnis rotundatis, pedibus flavescenti- 

 bus. Mas. (fig. 1.) Flavus vel saturate ferrugineus, capite magno rotundato ocello 

 utrinque unico tribusque in vertice instructo nigrescente, pedibus robustis. — Long. 

 lin. 1. 



Hab. in cellulis Anthophora retusce, apud Rutupium in Comitatu Cantio. 



In the month of August 1831, while examining the dry clay bank beneath the ruins of 

 the Roman castle at Kichborough, near Sandwich in Kent, in search of the larvse of Meloe 

 in the cells of Anthophora retusa, with which the bank was thickly perforated, I found 

 many cells filled with an abundance of minute parasitic larvse, about one line in length, 

 and apparently full-grown ; but scarcely a cell contained any vestige of its original inha- 

 bitant, the larva of Anthophora. During that autumn and the following spring I met 

 with these parasites so frequently in the cells, in different stages of development, that 

 although I regarded them at that time as a new species of Chalcididce, I took little heed 

 of them, as my chief object then was to obtain the Meloes, and as I expected to find them 

 on future occasions in equal abundance. Indeed they were so common as to occasion me 

 considerable annoyance in finding the cells filled with these intruders instead of the larvse 

 of Anthophora or Meloe. I took care, however, to make very precise drawings of both 

 sexes, in the perfect state, and of the larva, and also entered some notes of description. 

 In the following years, 1832 and 1834, I again met with them, more especially on the 

 21st of August in the latter year, but not in such profusion as at first ; but I have not 

 been able to procure them since that period. 



The larva (fig. 3) is completely apodal, of a subcylindrical form, a little attenuated at each 

 extremity, and composed of fourteen segments. The head is small, like that of the wasp, 

 or hornet, and the mandibles are short and acute. It occurred in the bee-cells to the num- 

 ber of thirty or fifty in each. I found it not only in the autumn, but also in the winter 

 and early spring, in this state, but in some cells the larvse had changed to nymphs before 

 the month of September. 



* These generic characters were published in full, together with short specific characters, in the ' Gardeners' Chro- 

 nicle,' March 24, 1849, No. 12. page 183, in the report of the reading of the first part of this paper. 



