22Q [September, 



Clytochrysus planifruns Thorns, at PeJiai'th. — This wasp appears to have 

 been recorded but twice in this country, Saunders, in Ent. Mo. Mag. 1906, 

 p. 173, mentions that he had a male ex Shuckard's collection, without date or 

 locality, and Morice in Ent. Mo. Mag. 1910, p. 272, records the capture of a 

 female in August 1894 utHillmorton. It is therefore interesting to record that 

 I took a male at Penarth, on a telegraph post, on June 22ud this year. 

 Repeated visits to the neighbourhood failed to produce any further examples. 

 It is noticeably darker in the field than the common C. cavifrons. Dr. E. C. L. 

 Perkins has kindly examined the wasp and confirmed the identification. — 

 H. M. Hallett, 0-4 Westbourne Road, Penarth : August 8th, 1921. 



Methoca ichneumo7iides Latr. and other Hymenoptera in Glainorgan. — 

 Methoca ichnevnionides was extraordinarily abundant at Porthcawl in June 

 1915, as many as 50 females being counted at one time about the burrows of 

 Cicindtla ccnirpestris in the space of a few yards. On the Gower sandhills this 

 July it occurred sparingly, and is there parasitic on Cicindela maritima. 

 Oxybelus aryentatus Curt, occurs on our sandhills in hundreds, principally on 

 flowers of Ev2)horhia paraUas and Cardims arvensis ; it preys on the fly Thereva 

 annulata ; in comparison w-ith this species, 0. nniyluniis is scarce. Spilomena 

 troglodytes V. d. Lind was plentiful in July this year at Penarth, nesting in old 

 burrows of Anobl^an, and storing their cells with immature Aphidae. Andrena 

 hattorfiana F. occurred sparingly at Gower this July, and thus confirms Smith's 

 record, made by Uossetor in 1854. — II. M. Hallett : August 8tk, 1921. 



The tibial comb of Deraeocoris Kirsehb. {= Capsus and Cajnptobroehis 

 Fieh.) — Mr. II. II. Knight in his exhaustive monograph of the North American 

 species of this genus of Miridae (18th Report of the State Entomologist of 

 Minnesota, Dec. 1920) describes and figures a comb-like structure at the distal 

 end of the anterior tibiae, a structure that does not seem to have been noticed 

 by previous writers on this family of Hemiptera-Heteroptera. One of the 

 N. American species, D. ruber L. {=laniurius L. and capillaris F.), a common 

 European insect (the Capsus laniarius of Saunders's Hemipt. Brit. Isls.), 

 appears to have been first noticed in the United States about 1886, and its 

 tibial comb is figured by Mr. Knight (Plate ix, fig. B) with that of various 

 other representative species of the genera of Deraeocorinae. The structure is 

 thus described: — " The tibial comb lies at the distal end of the fore tibia and 

 in the same plane as the anterior face, there being no difference between the 

 sexes. The comb is composed of a single row of very fine, closely placed, 

 translucent spine-like teeth, set on the vtry apical margin of the tibia, usually 

 bounded dorsally by one or more thick dark-coloured spines and, ventrally in 

 the same manner, the exact number and arrangement being different for each 

 genus within a related group. The front tibia is always more or less flattened 

 ©n the anterior face near the apex and usually very distinctly sulcate, these 

 modifications being well adapted for cleaning both rostrum and antennae. 

 On a few occasions the writer has observed living bugs cleaning the rostrum 

 and antennae by ajiplying the front feet one on each side of the member and 

 combing from base towards apex ; in such cleaning operations the tibial comb 

 has an important function. The tibial comb is fully developed in all the 

 fourth and fifth stage nymphs which have been exumined. A cursory exami- 

 nation of species in other families indicated that the tibial comb is pre&ent iu 



