Tlnrouia.] . BRITISH I(" HXICl' MONS. 51 



Head fulvous or flavous with the vertex rufescent, rarely black-marked; 

 eyes, ocelli and apices of the mandibles infuscate ; clypeus transverse, 

 arcuately discreted and apically impressed; labrum shortly exserted. An- 

 tennae longer than half the body, fulvous-ferrugineous, with the scape 

 generally paler beneath; basal half of flagellum with the joints trans- 

 verse. Thorax \-ery rarely entirely fulvidous, usually with larger or 

 smaller marks on the sternum and pleurae black ; the scutellar region and 

 rarely the whole sternum black ; a callosity beneath the radix flavous, and 

 two sometimes obsolete discal vittae pale fulvous with the intermediate 

 space infuscate; metanotum with three distinct basal areae, of which the 

 central is quadrate. Scutellum and postscutellum flavidous. Abdomen 

 broadest centrally, of ^ cylindrical, narrower and nearly twice longer 

 than thorax and head, of 9 hardly at all longer and as broad, oblong- 

 ovate ; fulvous or fusco-testaceous with the margins of the segments fla\- 

 escent; first segment generally basally black, the second to the sixth with 

 the base entirely, in the form of a transverse line or two dots, black, rarely 

 also with a discal mark nigrescent; terebra black, with the spicula fulvous 

 or castaneous. Legs fulvous with the front coxae and trochanters gener- 

 ally flavous beneath ; posterior coxae black-marked, the hind ones some- 

 times entirely fulvous or nearly entirely black; hind femora generally 

 with a black mark or longitudinal line beneath. Wings flavescent with 

 the stigma, radix and tegulae concolorous. Length, 6 — 15 mm. 



This is a very common species on the Continent, especially in the 

 central and southern regions, occurring on house windows, in woods and 

 on flowers of Chacrophylluvi bidbosiim from May to September (Grav. 1829 

 to Tosquinet, 1897). It has frequently been bred from a large variety of 

 lepidopterous hosts : Poda first raised it from the pupae oi Papilio atalania; 

 Scharfenberg and Brischke from Abraxas givssulan'a/a and the cocoons of 

 Bcnnbvx neustria ; Olivier and Kielmann from pupae of B. chrysorrfwea ; 

 Gravenhorst from pupae of Papilio polvchloros ; Ratzeburg from Papilio 

 crataegi, Bombyx pitii, B. dispar and Tortrix viridami ; Brischke from 

 luirycreon Terticalis and Piouea forficalis ; and Taschenberg from TJmcnitis 

 Camilla and Sciaphila penziana, adding that it hibernates beneath foliage. 

 Brischke says (Schr. Nat. Ges. Danz. 1880, p. in) that he bred it hyper- 

 parasitically, through cocoons of both sexes of Limneria tricolor, Htg., 

 from a lar\a of A. glossidariafa in Prussia. A fungus, Entoinophtltora 

 sphaerospcrnia, Fres., was found by Kirchner (Cat. 107) to attack the 

 wings of this species. 



It is a most remarkable circumstance that this large and very con- 

 spicuous insect has not been seen in Britain since Stephens' time ; there 

 are two males and two females of his in the National Collection, but 

 surely if it were indigenous it would have turned up somewhere in the 

 course of the last fifty v(^ars. 



PIMPLA, Fabricius. 

 Fab. Piez. (1804) p. 112. 



Head transverse, rarely subcubical, short and broad, somewhat narrowed 

 behind the usually internally eniarginatc eyes ; frons generally impressed, 

 smooth and nitidulous, centrally subconcave and longitudinally canalicu- 

 late with the scrobes large and not deeply impressed ; clypeus basally 

 distinctly discreted, towards the apex strongly depressed, and often more 

 or less strongly emarginate at tlu- apex ; labrum exserted and c-longately 



E2 



