1S12.1 153 



HELP-NOTES TOWAEDS THE DETERMINATION OF BRITISH 

 TENTHREDINID^, &c. (29.) 



BY THE REV. F. D. MORICE, M.A., F.E.S. 

 ALLANTV8, JURINE, AND TENTHREDO, L. 



Most species — or at any rate most British species — of Allantvs 

 may be easily known from those of Tenthredo by their wasp-lite 

 coloration, and short sub-clavate (or sub-fusiform) antennae, with a 

 long slender 3rd joint, and the penultimate joints (6, 7, 8) quite 

 remarkably sliort and thick. In Tenthredo the antennae are generally 

 longish ; and their penultimate joints, though shorter, are scarcely if at 

 all thicker than tlie third. The colour, too, is very seldom wasp- 

 like, tlie abdomen being generally quite ])lack, or red and black, or 

 green and black. Yet there are cases in which it is difficult to 

 employ the above characters ; and, in fact, tl;e most experienced 

 systematists have disagreed as to the exact dividing line between the 

 two genera, though fortunately, these differences of opinion affect the 

 position of two only among our native species. These two, until the 

 year 1888, were placed by all authors in the group now called Ten- 

 thredo ; but were then transferred by Konow (followed by Dalla 

 Torre, Costa, etc.) to AUantus, and there remained until Dr. Enslin, 

 the latest monographist of the latter genus, re-transferred them in 

 1910 to Tenthredo. My Table of Generic Characters (Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 August, 1903) was drawn up after correspondence with Konow and 

 under the influence of his views ; but even then I felt and expressed 

 some difficulty about bringing T. maculata under Konow' s definition 

 of Allantxis, and I am now convinced by Dr. Enslin's Memoir, and by 

 correspondence which I have since had with him, that it is best to 

 refer both maculata and the other species which Konow made into an 

 Allantus, viz., temula, Rossi (= bicincta, Cam., etc.), not to Allantus, 

 but to Tenthredo. 



Allantus, Jur., is a group which is rather poorly represented in 

 this country, but flourishes exceedingly all round the Mediterranean, 

 and throughout the warmer parts of the Palaearctic region generally. 

 In such districts its species are not only more namaerous, but also 

 far more diversified, both in colour and structure, than with us. Our 

 species (except the ^ of flavipes) are invariably black and yellow 

 simply, but in the South there are many more or less red-bodied 

 forms, and a few entirely black or violaceous, &c. 



On the other hand, Tenthredo spp. seem to become rare south of 



