1917.1 11 



The following description of the (^ was drawn up from the Forest 

 of Dean specimen. 



Pompilus cardui, sp. n. 



Male with the pronotal emargination distinctly less sharply angular than in 

 nigerrimns, and the propodeum with longer and more couspicnous hairs. Front 

 wings with the third transverse cubitus not meeting the second at or before 

 its apex, but received in the radius well beyond the second. Inner calcar* of 

 the middle and hind tibiae shoi-ter than in nigerrimus. Foiirth and fifth ventral 

 segments of the abdomen distinctly depressed and bearing a dense and special 

 clothing of hairs, so as to be quite unlike the preceding segments ; the fifth con- 

 spicuously emarginate at the apex. The eighth segment is wide and flattened, cili- 

 ated at the apex, and obsoletely or obscurely carinated in the middle, at least in 

 some aspects. Tarsal spines feebly developed, bo that the species probably 

 nests in holes under bark of dead wood rather than in the soil. 



The female is far more similar to nigerrimus than is the <? , but it may be 

 distinguished by the less sharply angular emargination of the pronotum, as in 

 the other sex, and the spines of the middle and hind tibiae and metatarsi 

 are less conspicuous and much shorter. The neuration is similar to that of the 

 $ , but I have seen aberrant ? $ of nigerrimus hardly differing in this respect, 

 and while the latter usually has the propodeum less hairy, I cannot at all 

 satisfy myself that it is so in all examples. 



Freshly emerged examples have the wings comparatively subhyaline with a 

 well marked dark border apically, biit in older ones they become dvisky 

 throughout. 



It is very remarkable that this species, the J of which could only 

 by carelessness be confused with any of our other black-bodied species, 

 should not have been previously noted in this country. It is, of 

 course, quite possible that it may be identical with some described 

 Continental species, but I cannot identify it with any certainty, nor 

 have I found it amongst the European blaclv- bodied species in the 

 British Museum, most of which are unnamed. 



Hah. : Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean, ^ ; Middlesex, Stan- 

 more, 1^ ? , bred by Mr. K. Gr. Blair. 



Paignton : 



November, 1916. 



* Since the above was written, I find that in some examples, which apparently are nigcrri- 

 iiius, the calcar varies in length, sometimes extending all but to the ape;c of the metatarsus, but 

 in others, falling considerably sliort of this I 



