1900.] 107 



It seems impossible to regard it as a variety of any known species, 

 the mere loss o£ purple or reddish colouring being insufficient to 

 account for its very distinct and peculiar appearance, or for the 

 marked contrast presented by the whitish cilia. The two specimens 

 were beaten from birch trees, in company with E. salopiella and E. 

 sparrmannella near Wellington College Station, in Berkshire, one on 

 the 14th, and the other on the 21st April, 1894. Mr. Hamm looked 

 for it unsuccessfully in the two following years, and has since had no 

 opportunity for further search. 



Merton Hall, Thetford : 

 April, 1900. 



ELLAMPUS TRUNCATUS, Dahlb. : AN ADDITION TO THE LIST 

 OF BRITISH CHRYSIDS. 



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



Mr. R. C. L. Perkins has forwarded to me from the Cambridge 

 University Museum, with the consent of the Curator, Dr. Sharp, a 

 Chrysid for determination, which, from what he tells me, may I hope 

 be safely added to our small British list of that family. 



It is an Ellampus truncatus, Dahlb., and belongs to Walcott's 

 collection. It is labelled " British — Walcott," but without date or 

 precise locality. Mr. Perkins, however, tells me there is no doubt it 

 is British, and was probably taken near Bristol about 1840. Walcott's 

 collection of Hyrnenoptera contains no professedly foreign specimens, 

 and the only ones ia it whose nationality is questionable are a few 

 which he received in exchange from the British Museum collection in 

 1842. But all these he duly ticketed as received from that source ; 

 and if the present insect had come from the British Museum it must 

 have been noticed by Shuckard and Smith. Nor is it at all improbable 

 that truncatus should occur in this country, as it is distributed all 

 over Europe— in fact, from Scandinavia to Egypt. I have a Mecklen- 

 burg specimen exactly like Walcott's insect, and am quite sure of the 

 identification. 



E. truncatus is very easily distinguished from any other of our British Chrysids. 

 The form of its post-scutellum is peculiar; this is acutely conical, though not — as in 

 the genus Notozus — produced into an overhanging horizontal plate. In our three 

 other species of Ellampus the posfc-scutellum is merely a little convex or gibbous, 

 the elevation being scarcely noticeable, except in the lateral view. In colour, pro- 

 ductus is not unlike ceneus, F., bright blue and green ; but apart from the different 

 form of the post-scutellum, it may at once be distinguished from that species by the 



