5(3 [March, 



9. Anqitia jxirx-icaviht Tlioms., S $ • 



Angifia 'parvicaitda Thonis. Opusc. Entom. xi, 1S87, p, 110^3, J . 

 Diodes lyarvicauda Sohm. Opusc. Ichn. xxi, 1909, p. 1G4-1, cJ (sic). 



A small, black, and somewhat elongate species, with the legs, except 

 basnlly, all pale red and terebra arcuate, not longer than half abdomen. Head 

 with the somewhat stout mandibles and the palpi pale. Antennal scape 

 beneatli and abdominal plica stramineous; terebra double the lengili of tlie 

 quadrate postpptiole. Legs flavidous : front coxae and base of the intermediate 

 black, witli the anterior trochanters stramineous and tlie hind ones nigrescent. 

 Wings with the nreolet hiii-her than broad, but frequently wanting. 



Length, 4 mm. J 2 • 



Distinct in its nearly square postpetiole and, in 5? '" it>^ semilunatrly 

 curved terebra, lending it somewhat tlie facies of A. vestigialix Ratz., than 

 which it is smaller Avith tlie thorax gibbulous, etc. Of our British species it is 

 most closely allied to A. intermpta Illur. in the apically acute discoidal cell 

 and (when present) shape of the areolet; but it is nuich more slender, witli a 

 length of 4 mm. against the latter's 5, iind instantly distinguished by tlie 

 curved apical radial abscissa and totally red hind tibiae. The areolet is very 

 often wanting; and the hithorto unknown c? differs only sexually. 



Thomson brought forward the 2 fi'om Pfdsjo in Sweden over 

 thirt}^ years ago, and I find it nowhere since referred to. In the 

 British catalogue it stands as No. 1382 a ; in lehn. Brit, v, 1914, p. 208, 

 it is No. 32 a of its genus. 



I believe we owe the introduction of this species into our fauna to 

 a very interesting natural phenomenon. I had ccllected around South- 

 wold on the Suffolk coast, sometimes wdth E. A. Elliott, Horace 

 Donisthorpe, Campbell-Taylor, etc., annually from 1890 to 19()() 

 (exhaustively so from 1st July to 2nd October in 1900), paying 

 particular attention to Ichneumonidac, without seeing a trace of this 

 species. In the year or one of the years immediately preceding 1907, 

 the sea, at the Buss Creek there, broke through its retaining wall and 

 covered a low-lying salt-marsh with shingle, whose area was about live 

 acres. Through this shingle in 1907 nothing but such truly maritime 

 plants as Arundo and Fsamma were able to sprout. From 2nd to 

 16th September, 1907, I found these plants literally crowned with a vast 

 congregation of insects, many of which I had never before seen in the 

 country, e.g. the tine Ortalid Dipteron, Anacamjita urticae Linn. 

 During this period Angitia ])ctrvicmida first appeared, and that in great 

 plenty, on 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, and 14th ; both sexes occurred on the above 

 reeds in company but not, I think, in cop., the <S J being rather moi-e 

 than one-fifth the rarer sex ; one specimen only occvirred on reeds 

 olsewdiere, at Easton Broad on the same coast one and a half miles 



