196 1 February, 



Basa] joint of antennte thick, black ; 3rd and following joints reddish, with their 

 apices infuscate, their setse rather long and conspicuous. Head with the antennal 

 elevations acute, the vertex deeply impressed, and more densely clothed with the 

 nearly white pubescence than the other parts. Thorax with the lateral tubercles 

 large and pointed, its pubescence scanty and easily removed, and the surface then 

 without sculpture and nearly sliining. Elytra rather elongate and narrow, with an 

 irregularly distributed whitish down, and some upright black setse, and with distant 

 coarsish punctures, which are quite obsolete before the apex, at their base with two 

 strongly-elevated, acute tubercles, whicli are destitute of pubescence. Legs rather 

 long, tibiffi reddish towards the knees, elsewhere blackish, but somewhat variegated 

 by the distribution of the whitish pubescence, the hairs on the inner sides of the four 

 posterior tibia; remarkably long and fine. 



This very distinct species should be placed next H. crista, from 

 which, however, it is very different ; the acute, bare tubercles of the 

 elytra, and its little variegated whitish pubescence, easily dis- 

 tinguish it. 



Sent by Captain Broun from Tairua. I have, unfortunately, lost 

 the number he attached to distinguish this species. 



Ecclcs, Thornhill : November, 1876. 



NOTES ON BRITISH TENTHEEDINIDJE AND CYNIPIDJE. 



BY P. CAMERON. 



(concluded from fage 178.) 



Taxonus equiseti, Fall, {hicolor, Kl.) — The larvro of this species 

 feed on Biimex acetoseJIa, in the leaves of which they make large 

 holes, and, as they are very voracious, the plant gets its leaves nearly 

 all destroyed wherever the creatures abound. 



The upper part of the head of the larva is fuscous, the lower 

 portion white ; the mandibles brown ; the eyes are placed at the end 

 of the fuscous part. Feet and claspers white. The lower part of the 

 body is whitish, with the spiracles brownish ; the upper half green, 

 sometimes tinted with red, probably through the contents of the food- 

 canal shewing through ; the skin is in furrows, and obscurely marked 

 with black. AVhen it becomes full-fed, the body gets stouter and 

 shorter, and the skin assumes a yellowish tinge. I presume that in a 

 state of nature the larva> do not spin cocoons, but pass the winter in 

 the stems of plants, for in my breeding jar they bored into the corks 

 and bramble stems which I provided for their use, and passed there 

 the period of quiescence, without the protection of a cocoon, like the 

 larvse of T. (jlahrntua {rf. Ent. IMo. Mag. xi, 118), from which they 

 differ very little, either in form or hal^ts, except pei'haps that they 



