8 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [Phidias. 



large, prominent and brown ; face sub-parallel-sided ; palpi elongate and 

 whitish; clypcus and mandibles rufcscent. Antennae a little longer than 

 two-thirds of the bod}-, nigrescent with the three basal joints dark brown ; 

 flagellum consisting of about twenty shortly and very finely pilose joints, of 

 which the first is longer than the second. Thorax o'bsoletely villose, black, 

 shining and elongate ; mesothorax strongly nitidulous; metathorax dull, 

 finely and scabrously punctate, longer than broad and apically constricted ; 

 areola linear and the lateral costae obsolete. Scutellum somewhat large 

 and shining. Abdomen dull, elongate and infuscate ; basal segment 

 slightly curved and, with the base of the apically fiavidous second 

 segment, rugosely aciculate ; remaining segments apically narrowly 

 flavidous with the ultimate pale throughout ; terebra one-third the length 

 of the abdomen, straight, linear and not pilose. Anterior legs clear brown 

 with the coxae and trochanters flavidous ; the hind ones darker with the 

 trochanters, apices of the coxae, base of the tibiae, with the base and 

 apex of the femora, dull flavidous ; fifth tarsal joint double length of the 

 fourth. Wings not clouded ; stigma infuscate and emitting the radius, 

 which has both its basal and apical abscissae straight with the latter half 

 as long again as the former, from its centre ; lower angle of the discoidal 

 cell rectangular ; nervellus a little oblique and antefurcal, intercepted 

 below the centre. Length, 6-8 mm. 



The ^ , which has not hitherto been described, differs from the 9 only 

 in having the face on either side below the antennae and the whole of 

 the prothorax, except a narrow discal vitta, white ; the antennae basally 

 beneath, the hind coxae and their femora, paler ; the basal segment 

 narrower and the apical tarsal joint hardly longer than the penultimate ; 

 and the antennae nearly as long as the body. 



This species has never been mentioned in British literature and I have 

 heard of no Continental records. The female was originallv described 

 from a specimen sent from England by Rev. T. A. Marshall, in whose 

 Catalogue is a JMS. note on this species, placed near Lampronota, " Two 

 females and one male taken by me. Another male (very small) by 

 Bignell " — presumably in Devon and Cornwall. 



I possess a full series of both sexes in Dr. Capron's collection from Shere 

 in Surrey. It is probably not uncommon in the southern counties, though 

 I have never personally met with it. 



TROPISTES, Gravenhorst. 

 Gr. I. E. iii (1829), 442. 



This genus is at once known from all other Pimplinae by the entirely 

 and extremely strongly compressed abdomen, and, among the Xoridides, 

 by its quite circular and very small metathoracic spiracles and obsoletely 

 sculptured abdomen, which is almost petiolate. 



It is so rare that discussion respecting its most natural position has 

 been awakened only during comparatively recent years. Gravenhorst in 

 1829 placed it in the Banchidcs, between his genera. Co/tvcen/rus and Aro/es, 

 remarking at the same time upon the relation set up by the compressed 

 abdomen on the one side to Porizon and Cremaslus and by the cubical 

 head on the other to Xy/oiiomus a.v\A Xorides. Thomson in 1884 appears 

 to be the next author who met with this genus, a species of which he 

 described, without recognising its relation to TivpisUs, under the name 



