174 [August, 



DiPLOPTERA, 



Fespa austriaca, Pz. ^ (Ent. Mo. Mag., xxxii, ]>. 212). 

 This sex of austrioca was first recorded from Britain in 1896, 

 Mr. O. Picl?ard Cambridoje having secured both sexes in Dorsetshire. 

 Since then it has occurred in various localities. Mr. Chas. Kobson of 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1898 {cf. Sc. Gossip, vol. v, pp. 69 and 70) 

 succeeded in finding both sexes in an old nest of F. germanica, which 

 he had had in his possession since 1887, thereby proving, what had 

 been suspected by Schmiedeknecht and others, its parasitic or inqui- 

 line relations with ricfa. A further and most interesting article 

 on this species, by Messrs. Carpenter and Pack-Beresford may be 

 found in the " Irish Naturalist" for September, 1903, and in this 

 Magazine, vol. xxxix, p. 230 et se^. 



The male may be known at once by its short cheeks and hairy tibiae. It is 

 the only British species in which these two characters are combined. It has also 

 the long first segment of the abdomen as in the ? , which is distinctly longer than 

 in rufa. 



Odynerus (Hoplopus) simillimus, Mor. (Ent. Mo. Mag., xxxix, p. 6). 

 This fine addition to our list was made by Mr. W. H. Harvvood, 

 who took a single c? in 1901, near Colchester, and his son the year 

 after captured a few of both sexes on flowers near a ditch on the 

 marshes. 



It should be placed next to renifornis, Gm. in our list, as it possesses in the $ 

 the curious genal and coxal spines which characterise that species, but in shnillitnus 

 the former are black and not yellow, and the latter are finer, shorter, black at the 

 base, and yellow only towards the apex, whereas in reniformis they are entirely 

 yellow anteriorly ; the colour of the pale markings is throughout whiter than in 

 reniformis, and the abdominal bands are narrower. This coloration gives it more 

 the appearance of a large melanocephalus, especially in the ? . There is, however, 

 an important character which will distinguish it at once from any other species, and 

 that is the form of the metapleurae, each of which bears a somewhat ill-defined, but 

 distinct, tubercle. The post-scutellum in the ? has a pale band which will further 

 serve to distinguish it from melanocephalus. 



Odynerus {Leionofus) tomenfosiis, Thorns. (Ent. Mo. Mag., xxxvi, 



p. 172). 

 This species is the only one of the Leionotus section that has any 

 claim to a place in the British list, and unfortunately no locality is 

 recorded for it. Mr. R. C. L. Perkins introduced it on a series of 

 specimens in the Walcott Collection at Cambridge. I think there is 

 no reason for doubting the British origin of these, so one can only 

 hope for further records of its capture. 



