230 [October. 



Yorkshire. The original specimens of Pompilus approximatus Sm., 

 collected by Dr. D. Sharp in Dumfriesshire, are of gigantic size. The 

 females of F. nigerrimus Sc. {niger F.) in Smith's collection are, most 

 of them, well above the average in size, but the largest approximatus 

 is about twice as large as any of them ! P. acuminatus Sm. ( =sericeus 

 V. de L.) is represented by a single specimen only. The red-bodied 

 Pompilidae were too difficult for Smith, and a number of our species 

 of Pompilus he did not distinguish at all, although he had specimens of 

 them, nor jei the two common species of Salius, 8. pusillus Sch. and 

 parviilus Dahlb. In consequence, his series of P. gibbus F. contains 

 icesmaeli Thoms. 6 and 5 , viaticus Linn, c? var. small, ttnguicula9-is 

 Thoms., chalybeatus Sch., many females, gibbus comparatively few, 

 pectinipes V. de L. d and § , and small 6 6 oi Salius exaltafus F. 

 The (S of P. chalybeatus was given to P. pectinipes, as Saunders rightly 

 observed {op. cit. p. 62). 



The two females assigned to a species supposed to be Salius notatus 

 Rossi {^= notatulus E. Saund.) are large examples and truly notatulus, 

 but other specimens of this were mixed with exaltatus, while two of the 

 males are not Salius at all, but belong to P. chalybeatus. One of 

 these, indeed, is labelled "type from Shuckard collection, P. sericatus.'''' 

 Distinct as it is, *S'. notatulus has not been very well understood in this 

 country. At one time Saunders confused the S with the very different 

 Calicurgus hyalinatus F., and one of his female examples, the actual 

 type, if I remember rightly, now in the British Museum, is only the 

 common exaltatus. Later, he seems to have doubted whether any of 

 the so-called females really belonged to his S notatulus, and to have 

 thought it possible that the black $ Salius, found in the New Forest, 

 and referred to aS. propinquus, might be the same species as that S ! 

 The scarce Ceropales variegatus F. is represented b}'' a single pair from 

 Wey bridge, there is the typical series of JSliscoplius maritimus Sm. 

 from Deal, and a single Dinetus pictns F. from " Sandhurst, 1837," all 

 these being of interest. The examples of Oxybelus which Smith took 

 from Astata boops Schr., are preserved, as weU as the ordinary Pent- 

 atomid prey. Excepting three specimens, all the series of Nysson, 

 interruptus F. is wrongly named, the othei"s being only spinosus F. 

 The small black Crahronidae, standing under the names Crabro 

 proximus, luteipalpis^ varius, transvei'salis, obliquus, and pallidi- 

 palpis, are much mixed, each name being generally represented by 

 several distinct species. I find no black-bodied males of C. dimidiatus 

 F., such as Smith records, and I think he must have meant to refer to 

 melanic examples of C. 4^-maculatus Dahlb.. small sj^ecimens of which 



