1917.] 243 



bear — our own list (and also the synonymies of mandilularis and 

 sericatus in v. Dalla Torre's Catalogue) being altered accordingly. 



3. — O. niijripes 01. {iiec Smith, Saunders). 



This species was described as British by Shuckard from a single old 

 specimen in the British Museum ; but he says of it : "I cannot learn 

 where it was taken," and it seems more than doubtful whether it is not 

 really one of the foreign captm-es of Dr. Leach, which are believed, and, 

 in fact {teste F. Smith!), actually known, to have been incorporated by 

 a mistake in the British part of the National Collections. 



The specimen in question — a $ — is certainly the nigripes 01. of 

 Continental authors, and agrees well with Olivier's original description. 

 Its chief distinguishing characters are pointed out quite correctly by 

 Shuckard, e.g. the mucro "curved, very obtuse, canaliculated above," 

 the postscutellar squamae " black," the legs " black with the inside of 

 the anterior pair fulvous ; all the tarsi piceous with their extreme joint 

 red," the abdomen (N.B.) "delicately punctured," etc. It will be seen 

 on comparing Shuckard's description with that of E. Saunders that the 

 two by no means agree ! This is because the latter author di'ew up his 

 diagnosis, not from the specimen (still at South Kensington) described 

 by Shuckard, but from an insect in Smith's collection, which that author 

 considered — erroneously beyond all doubt — to be a second British speci- 

 men of nigripes 01. Saunders had not seen Shuckard's type, nor, 

 apparently, any other example of nigripes 01., British or foreign, for he 

 says expressly : *' I have only seen one example of this, which was taken 

 by Mr. Stevens in Devonshire and described by Smith. This has been 

 kindly lent to me by Dr. P. B. Mason " (Hymen. Acul. Brit. Isls. 

 p. 123). So that he evidently accej)ted this Devonshire insect as the 

 true nigripes 01. simply on the authority of F. Smith. 



Smith's collection is now, as readers of this Magazine need scarcely 

 be told, fortunately in the possession of a most able and accurate specialist 

 on Hymenopterological questions. Dr. 11. C. L. Perkins. After examining 

 at my request Shuckard's " type " at S. Kensington, he was good enough 

 to bring his own '•'■nigripes Smith" (which, as said above, was also the 

 type of E. Saunders's nigripes^ to the Museum for comparison with it, 

 and he saw at once that (as might be supposed from a comparison of the 

 descriptions) the nigripes of Smith and Saunders is a totally different 

 species from the nigripes of Shuckard and the Continental authors, 

 having a distinctly hijitl mucro, pale, not black, postscutellar s(puimae, 

 differently coloured legs, a different puncturation, etc., etc. 



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