1906. J 161 



tlie country, and there are a few unarranged specimens in the British Museum. It 

 seems a pity that the study of this extremely interesting group of parasitic insects 

 should be altogether dropped here. The insects are easy to collect, and in late 

 autumn are swept in some numbers by every Coleopterist who uses sweeping as a 

 method of collecting beetles, and bottling them is an easy matter as they are slug- 

 gish. Thougli small, or even microscopic in size, they are easily preserved as they 

 are extremely hard, and the wings, even if mounted badly in the first instance, can 

 usually afterwards be disentangled. Unlike Diptera there is no objection to carding 

 them as most of the characters are on the upper side and the insects can easily be 

 floated off. They can also be pinned through the side, but the wings must then be 

 kept expanded to show the metanotum and petiole. Until recently the work of 

 identification up to a certain point was easy, as Ashmead's book on the American 

 Proctotrypidx gives all the generic characters, and Marshall's catalogue gives refer- 

 ence to the specific descriptions. 



The appearance, however, of the first parts of vol. ix of Andre's work on the 

 European Proctotrypidx has temporai'ily greatly complicated matters, though, 

 ultimately, it will no doubt enable a satisfactory British list to be made out. The 

 Abbe J. J. Kieffer, to whom the last of the work was entrusted on the death of Mr. 

 Marshall, differs on many important points from Ashmead and Marshall, and, as the 

 result, a large number of the old British species have been re-named, and in many 

 cases the earlier descriptions have been thrown aside as insufficient. Too much 

 praise cannot be given to the thoroughness with which the work has been done. 

 Its completion will be a formidable task. 368 pages have been reached in dealing 

 with two out of the ten groups of the family, comprising 32 only out of the 

 373 insects in Marshall's catalogue. Unfortunately the author never states 

 whether his description is from a single specimen or many. To me this seems a 

 most important detail, especially in parasitic insects, when (judging at least from the 

 Ichneumonldx) even structural chai'acters are not always constant, I am left after 

 using the work, under the impression that the number of species in some of the 

 genera must, if the characters really hold, be almost infinite. To take a concrete 

 instance ; in the genus Antxon, 54 ? ? and 29 unattached S S are described, 64 

 of them being described as new species, while 17 names, 16 of which are in 

 Marshall's catalogue as British, are declared unrecognisable. 36 of the new species 

 are described as from Scotland (P. Cameron). Most of these have not been taken 

 elsewhere. Nevertheless, ray own British specimens appear in most cases not to 

 agree structurally with the species described, though I could, somewhat doubtfully 

 perhaps, assign them names from the old British list (now discarded), and I have 

 some species to which names are so assigned by Mr. Marshall. The almost com- 

 plete absence of satisfactory English records in a conspicuous genus like Antason 

 with 36 species described from Scotland shows what a lot of work there is to be done 

 in the group. This can best be done, in the first instance, by making collections. 



During the past few years I have got together a small collection of these insects, 

 and that of the late Mr. Beaumont has recently come into my hands (unfortunately 

 the naming of this, even according to the old system, is anything but satisfactory), 

 while Mr. Morley has been good enough to lend me those which he had captured or 

 received from correspondents as Ichneumons (many already named by Mr. Marshall), 



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