QQ [March, 



Further than this, I fear that the life-history of Met cecus para- 

 doxus is still a mystery, especially as to how the females pass the winter, 

 and how the species is propagated when the seasons are adverse to 

 the wasps. 



It is quite possible that the nests of V. riifa may also contain 

 MetcEcus, but 1 have had no opportunity of studying this wasp, 

 which is rare in East Anglia. 



Bury St. Edmunds : 



January 2Sth, 1897. 



Strophosomu.tfuhicornis, Walton. — On April 18th last, while beating the young 

 hazels and birches in a wood in this neighbourhood, I noticed S. capitatus in pro- 

 fusion, and, as the specimens sliowed great variation in size and colour, I captured a 

 very large number for examination, expecting to find S.fulvicoruis, Walt., amongst 

 them. In this I was not disappointed, as there were several examples agreeing 

 sufficiently well with Walton's description. The uniformity in the colour of the 

 depressed scales, and the shorter, sparser, and finer suberect hairs (or hair-like scales) 

 on the elytra — two of the main characters relied upon by Walton — prove to be of 

 no specific value when a long series is examined. In some specimens {fulvicornis, 

 Walt.) the seriate, suberect hairs are extremely short, fine, and widely scattered on 

 the elytra, becoming longer and more distinct on the apical declivity ; and in others 

 {capiiatus, De Geer) they are long and conspicuous throughout. Another character 

 relied upon by Walton is the subremotely punctured thorax in S. fulvicornis, and 

 the rugulosely punctured thorax in .S. capitatus ; but when the scales are removed 

 I am unable to detect any difference. The largest examples are extremely like S. 

 coryli, from which they differ in having the suture of the elytra not denuded of 

 scales at the base, the elytra themselves rounded at the sides below the shoulders 

 (instead of subparallel, as in S. coryli), and the thorax less constricted behind, and 

 more transverse. <S. fulvicornis, reinstated as a distinct species in Fowler's 

 "Coleoptera of the British Islands" (v, p. 190) (1891), and in Sharp and Fowler's 

 " Catalogue " (1893), cannot, in my opinion, be regarded as anything more thsin an 

 extreme form of the very variable iS. capitatus, De Greer (= obesus. Marsh.). 

 Walton himself rather doubted the distinctness of his species, his description having 

 been taken from three specimens only, these being from Parley Heath. — G. C. 

 Champion, Horsell, Woking : February 2nd, 1897. 



Zeugophora- flavicoUis, Marsh. — British specimens of this species, which has 

 recently been found, singly, by Messrs. F. Waterhouse and B. G. Rye, on Wimbledon 

 Common, and, in some numbers, by Mr. B. S. Harwood, near Colcliester, have the 

 legs entirely yellow or reddish-yellow, as described by Marsham, in 1802, in his 

 " Coleoptera Britannica " (p. 217), and as figured by Stephens.* Weise [Naturg. 

 Ins. Deutschl., vi, p. 58 (1881)] describes three forms of Z.^duicoW/s, taking the one 

 with infuscate or black hind femora as the type (though Marsham distinctly states 



* 111. Brit. Ent., Mand., iv, t. 22, fig. 4. 



