li'oo.] 123 



vignes, is not exempt from hj'perparasitism. Sixty-five years ago 

 Kirby wrote {lih. cit.) : " Upon another examination no more of these 

 insects {Sphegopliagce) appearing, he (Hope) discovered that they had 

 been pierced, in their chrysalis state, by a minute species belonging 

 to the family Chalcididcd, of which he found no less than twenty 

 specimens flying about in search of their prey." Might these not 

 have been Braconids, of which Mr. Donisthorpe gave me a specimen, 

 unfortunately in too bad a condition for determination, bred from 

 Spliegophaga cocoons ? Hope persists in the family, however, "a species 

 of Ano7nalon, which is the prey of one of the minute ChalcididcB " 

 (Proc. Ent. Soc. Loud., 1838, p. iii). Stone is interesting, though too 

 vague to follow : " • • Cocoons of Anomalon vesparuin, inter- 

 mixed with which were those of a much smaller species of Ichneumon " 

 (sensu Into, probably), " which made its appearance in the perfect 

 state a few days afterwards " (^". e., after August 24th, 1864). " I am 

 not aware that an ichneumon of this size has been described as an 

 inhabitant of wasps' nests ; it may, therefore, possibly prove to be 

 new " {lih. cit., 1865, p. 65). 



They sometimes, perhaps often, breed in the same nests with 

 Metoecus {Ridpipliorus) paradoxus, L., which is, however, confined to 

 those of Vespa vulgaris, L., while the Ichneumon is found with two or 

 three different species, as pointed out by Smith. Hope found Sphego- 

 phaga in the nest of Vespa rufa (Kirby) ; E. Wood bred it from 

 wasps' nests, presumably from near Manchester, and Blackwallat Cump- 

 rall Hall (Curtis) ; v. Siebold bred it from Vespa vulgaris, m Germany 

 (Ratzcburg) ; Roujet, abundantly from Vespa germanica. Fab., pre- 

 sumably near Dijon (Andre) ; Bignell, from "the common wasp," in 

 South Devon (Ich., /. c.) ; Bridgman records it from Norwich (Tr. 

 Norf. Nat. Soc, v, 627), and there is a fully winged $ in his collection ; 

 Chapman has twice bred it from Vespa vulgaris at Hereford {I. c. and 

 in lit.), and there are three brachypterous ? $ from him in the 

 Bridgman collection, one of which is very small and, from the colour 

 of the abdomen, probably immature, and one of its antennae is slightly 

 longer than the other, though both are complete. In the British 

 Museum collection are two brachypterous and one fully winged 

 specimens ; of these two, including the last, which was " bred from 

 nest of Vespa rufa'' and is very probably one of those five specimens 

 bred by Fred. Smith {cf. Proc. Ent. Soc, 1862, p. 77) from a Yorkshire 

 nest of this wasp {v. Brit. Foss. Hymen., 1858), are from the Desvignes 

 collection ; the third being from that of Stephens, who, curiously 

 enough, does not mention the species in his " Illustrations." My own 



