THE BRITISH CRYPTIN^. 183 



have given trouble, are seen to have a decided affinity to some one or other 

 of the specimens already known, and that there is no real difficulty in 

 deciding on the family (or subfamily in the case of the Ichneumonidae) 

 to which they belong. Further help may be obtained by illustrations 

 from works easily accessible to all, such as Curtis' British Entomology, 

 Stephens' I /lustrations, Westwood's Introduction, Marshall's British 

 Braconidae, Cameron's Phytophagous Hymenoptera [Cynipidae), Ash- 

 mead's North American Proctotrypidae, etc. Illustrations are particu- 

 larly valuable to the early study of a new group of insects. 



The present group of the Cryptinae contains many wingless forms, 

 and a knowledge of the structural characters, and not merely of the 

 venation, is essential for discrimination ; still, the general look will," 

 after a comparatively short practice, enable a wingless Cryptid to be 

 separated from other wingless hymenoptera almost at first sight. 

 Mr. Morley has expressed a doubt as to the position of one of the 

 species described by him in the volume {Thaumatotypus billupsi, 

 Bridgm.), so it may not be amiss to add a few remarks on the 

 characters used for such discrimination. 



The characters which appear to distinguish the wingless Cryptinae 

 from the other ichneumons are the petiolate 1st segment of the 

 abdomen the sculpture of the post-petiole and the exserted ovi- 

 positor in the $ , combined with the furrows on each side of the 

 iiu'<< internum (see Introduction, p. xv). The chief difficulty will thus 

 be found (as is usual in the Ichneumonidae) to lie with the $ , but 

 still good characters are left even for this. Passing to the other 

 families which form the complex super-family of Ichneumonoidea, 

 we may observe that wingless Bracons, of which there are few in 

 Great Britain, may (except in the case of the Braconid group 

 Flexiliventres, to which belong the minute insects that feed on the 

 Aphidae of our gardens — recently written about and illustrated in the 

 Daily Mail as Chalcids, which, if any wingless forms exist, could 

 probably be distinguished by their minute size, slender bodies, and 

 many-jointed antenna)), have the 2nd and 3rd joints of the abdomen 

 united so as to have no power of bending at that point even where a 

 suture (the " suturiform articulation" of Marshall) exists. This is 

 never the case with a Cryptid. On the other hand, wingless Chalcids 

 have usually a distinct scape to the antennas and show traces of 

 metallic coloration. They are also, in this country, usually extremely 

 minute, resembling at first sight wingless diptera rather than any 

 other order. The intermediate legs are often more developed than the 

 posterior, and they often have the power of jumping. 



Wingless and brachypterous Proctotrypids are, perhaps, more 

 difficult to know, but, being almost in every case females, the second 

 character assigned in the text to the family, viz., the extrusion of the 

 ovipositor from the anal extremity of the abdomen is usually sufficient 

 in practice, and other characters which apply to both sexes may 

 be obtained from the extremely smooth, hardened body of the 

 Proctotrypidae, with an abdomen having closely united dorsal and 

 ventral plates ; from the antenna', which in the British species have 

 never more than fifteen joints, and in many cases much fewer, and 

 from the fact that, in brachypterous forms, the prothorax invariably 

 reaches back to the base of the forewings (as in the Cynipidae). 



Wingless Cynipidae being $ s, should be known by the terebra, 



