Pi/'ipla.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS 57 



and nearly double the length of the head and thorax, discally Mibdeplanate ; 

 black, or rarely with the central segments badious or castaneous with only 

 their apices black ; segments transversely impressed and laterally tubercu- 

 late with their apices broadly elevated and nitidulous; the first moderately 

 elevated and shorter than the hind coxae; the following quadrate or in 9 

 transverse ; terebra as long or very nearly as long as the body, setulose, 

 with the spicula smooth and badious. Legs somewhat slender, fulvous- 

 red; anterior coxae castaneous or nigrescent beneath; tarsi apically in- 

 fuscate; front femora and tibiae flavescent below; occasionally the apices 

 of all the femora and the tibiae before their base flavescent; hind tibiae 

 apicallv and before the base indeterminately infuscate; tarsal claws very 

 distinctly lobate basally, their apical joint rather longer than double the 

 penultimate. Wings somewhat clouded and not narrow; stigma nigrescent 

 and sometimes basallv paler; radix and tegulae pale stramineous; areolet 

 irregularly subsessile, radius externally subsinuate at base and apex; ner- 

 vellus postfurcal and intercepting in or just above the centre. Length, 

 I T — 13 mm. 



This large s])ecies bears a superficial resemblance to Ep/iial/cs lidnrcula- 

 ///.? and, like it, has the spicula apically subdeflexed; but the transverse 

 second segment, ovate hind coxae, fusiform $ abdomen, and usually 

 partly flavescent hind tibiae will distinguish it. The metathorax is dis- 

 tinctly margined apically and deeply foveate on either side ; the develop- 

 ment of the areola is variable, though usually obsolete, it is very obvious 

 on one or two of my females. 



This species, though occurring from Sweden to Italy from June to 

 October, is nowhere common, especially in northern Europe. Ratzeburg 

 records it from Toririx turumaiia ; and says that Reissig bred it in Darm- 

 stadt, with his P. Rcissigii, out of alders in which Crypforhyiichus lapathi 

 was burrowing — " with the female sent to me was also the cocoon" (its 

 own or that oi" the beetle .'') " from which it had emerged. It is seven 

 lines long, quite smooth inside, covered outside with scraps of alder- 

 wood" '\cf. Trans. Ent. Soc. 1907, p. 53); he adds later that Brischke also 

 bred it from Sesia foniiicaefonuis early in June, as is noted, together with 

 S. sphccifonnis, by the latter (Schr. Nat. Ges. Danz. 1880, p. 112). 

 Taschenberg's record of it from Myilophila cribnlla must I think, be re- 

 garded with some little doubt, since in every other instance it has preyed 

 upon xylophagous species. In Britain, for instance, it is apparently con- 

 fined to Sesia myopacformis, since Sich has given me a female taken on the 

 trunk of an apple tree at Chiswick, in June, 1899, which was infested with 

 the lar\ae of this moth ; and Sparke captured anotlier in his garden in the 

 Tooting Bee Road, London, in the act of inserting its spicula into a hole 

 in the bark of a pear tree, probabh' in order to reach the same species. 

 It is, however, not common in Britain and the only records I can find, 

 since its introduction by .Marshall in 1870, are Bridgman's from Norwich 

 and Harwood's for Essex in the Vict. Hist, of that county. It does not 

 appear to have been noticed as a beneficial garden insect by any of the 

 economists, though to the best of our present knowledge it most frequently 

 occurs in such situations, sometimes at lime blossom, as was discovered 

 by Flatten in Ipswich on 7th July, 1900. I have once taken the female 

 on flowers in the Bentley woods on 29th August, 1895. Dours says of 

 Ntmatus in/cnus, Oliv., " Sa larve qui vit dans les galles du saule Mar- 

 saull a j)(iur i)arasites /*/>///»/(/ idnnalii, (iia\.,"" etc. {(/. P. gttllicola, post.) 



