38 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [Ephialtes. 



3. tuberculatus, Foiirc. 



Ichneumon tuberculatus, Fourc. E. P. ii. 395. /. leucopterus, Gruel. S. N. 

 i. 2699. Ephialtes tuberculatus, Gr. I. E. iii. 228; Zett. I. L. 374 ; Ratz. Ichn. 

 d. Forst. ii. 100 ; Holragr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 1860, n. 10, p 13 ; Thorns. O. E. 

 viii. 740, c? ? ; Tasch. Zeits. Ges. Nat. 1863, 255, <? ? . Pimpla Reissigii, Ratz. 

 Ichn. d. Forst. ii. 89, ? ,^ . 



A large, sublinear black species with dark stigma and very distinct 

 tubercles. Head black, with palpi flavidous and the clypeus often apically 

 rufescent ; vertex broad and strongly nitidulous, with a few fine and scat- 

 tered punctures ; occiput broad, bordered and hardly emarginate ; face 

 nitidulous and subdeplanate, with strong and sparse punctures ; clypeus 

 semicircularly depressed centrally and produced into a truncate tooth on 

 either side ; mandibles stout. Antennae filiform and obsoletely pilose 

 throughout, of ^ nearly as long as the body, of 9 about half that length 

 and consisting of 38 flagellar joints. Thorax immaculate, or in $ some- 

 times with a small testaceous callosity at the radix ; notauli not reaching 

 centre of the nitidulous mesonotum ; epicnemia entire, mesopleurae some- 

 what closely and strongly punctate, with the lateral sulci large and their 

 region entirely glabrous, sternauli wanting ; metathorax scabrous with the 

 pleurae subglabrous, its disc bicarinate with the carinae a little divergent 

 apically ; spiracles subcircular. Scutellum black, subconvex, shining 

 and not sparsely punctate. Abdomen immaculate, subcylindrical, fully as 

 broad as and twice the length of the thorax, of $ longer and more 

 slender ; basal segment centrally strongly elevated and longitudinally 

 canaliculate throughout ; second obliquely impressed to its centre ; the 

 intermediate segments hardly longer than broad, or especially in J 

 slightly longer ; sixth and seventh of 9 ventrally protuberant ; terebra 

 one-sixth longer than the body, with the valvulae pilose and somewhat 

 stout. Legs normal and red, of ^ paler ; front coxae of 9 sometimes 

 basally black ; hind tarsi, their tibiae entirely or externally, and generally 

 the apices of the $ femora, reddish-brown ; apical joint of the hind tarsi 

 thrice longer than the penultimate and all the claws very strongly lobate 

 basally. Wings more or less clouded or silaceous in 9 ; stigma dark 

 piceous, basally paler ; radix and tegulae ferrugineous or ochreous, some- 

 times flavidous ; areolet nearly 

 sessile and subirregularly trian- 

 gular ; lower wings with the basal 

 abscissa of the radius half as long 

 again as the second recurrent ner- 

 vure ; nervellus slightly postfurcal 

 and intercepted a little above the 

 centre. Length, 12-19 mm. 

 This species is at once distinguished from all our others of this genus, 

 except the following, by its very distinctly tuberculate abdomen and more 

 nitidulous appearance. From E. heteropus it may be known by its larger 

 and stouter facies, more glabrous metapleurae, distinctly bicarinate 

 metanotum, longer terebra, darker hind legs and especially by its infuscate 

 stigma. 



It is distributed throughout Europe and is not very uncommon in 

 Britain. Females in my collection were taken by Miss Chawner in the 

 New Forest, by Donisthorpe flying round a birch tree at Rannoch, and by 

 Col. Yerbury at Golspie in Sutherland and at Brodie, in July and August ; 



