12 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS [Pi»ip/a. 



propleurae throughout, stramineous; notauli short but distinct; meso- 

 notum subglabrous, closely and very finely punctate; metanotum with 

 large, sparse punctures and scanty, grey hairs ; areola smooth, centrally 

 concave and laterally weakly costate ; petiolar area ^■ery smooth and niti- 

 dulous ; spiracles circular. Scutellum black, sparsely and shallowly punc- 

 tate. Abdomen oblong-subfusiform, coarsely punctate and somewhat 

 strongly contracted at base and apex in both sexes ; basal segment hardlv 

 longer than broad, strongly punctate, a little elevated and in 9 ^vith 

 somewhat distinct carinae reaching nearly to its apex ; second to fifth 

 strongly punctate and tuberculate, apically bro adiy smooth and distinctly 

 elevated ; terebra exactly as long as the abdomen or only four-fifths of its 

 length, with valvulae setigerous and spicula castaneous. Legs fulvous and 

 distinctly stoutish ; the anterior of 9 slightly and of J obviously paler 

 with the front coxae and trochanters entirely, and most of the intermediate, 

 at least in ^ , stramineous ; hind legs with the tarsi of 9 , and apices only 

 of the 9 testaceous and J white tibiae, black ; tarsi of J entirely stra- 

 mineous with only apices of the hind ones infuscate ; claws of 9 dis- 

 tinctly lobate basally ; hind coxae not granulate, their apical tarsal joint 

 hardly thrice longer than the penultimate. Wings subhyaline; stigma and 

 radius always nigrescent, tegulae and radix stramineous ; areolet irregular, 

 broadly triangular and subpetiolate ; nervellus intercepting exactly in or 

 slightly below the centre. Length, 7 — q mm. 



The 9 is instantly known from all other species of this genus by the 

 colour of the face and the (^ as readily by the basally flavous propleurae ; 

 the tibiae in all the British specimens I have seen are always apically but 

 never before their base infuscate, though the basal colour appears more 

 variable on the Continent, where this species attains a size of from ten to 

 ten and a quarter millimetres ; it resembles P. gramme/iae, but the terebra 

 is longer, the hind coxae not granulate, the face of the 9 a-nd pleurae of 

 the (5* are pale-marked and the hind tibiae are not basally infuscate. I 

 have given a somewhat detailed description since the J has hitherto been 

 but poorly described by Ratzeburg and hardly more than mentioned by 

 Brischke. 



This species, which is rare everywhere in northern and central Europe, 

 has been recorded from Sickershausen, Piedmont, Thuringia, Ljungby in 

 Sweden, in August and September in Belgium and from France. Ratze- 

 burg says Hartig instances it (Jahresb. p. 253) as attacking Kiefern- 

 spinners {Bombyx pini') in Germany. With us, though recorded as British 

 in 1856, it has since been mentioned only by Bridgman as "common" in 

 Norfolk and by Bignell as captured by Parfitt in Devon, by sweeping in 

 June. I have never received it from my numerous correspondents and, 

 except in one instance, the female alone has occurred to me singly: by 

 sweeping reeds at Bramford at the end of June, 1895; by sweeping herb- 

 age at Barham at the beginning of September, i8g6; on Angelica flower 

 in Finborough Park at the end of August, 1900; and, out of Suffolk, I 

 have met with it once on Angelica flower in Matley Bog, in the New 

 Forest, towards the end of August, 1901, and once by sweeping a hedge- 

 row at Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, towards the end of August, 1906. 

 I possess a single male captured by Capron about Shere. Twelve females 

 and ten males of this species were bred on 26th July, 1897, from a single 

 cocoon of Odoucsfis poiatoria, found at Ipswich. The disposition of the 

 parasites' brown, externally rough and internally smooth but not shining, 

 cocoons of twelve millimetres in length is similar to that of Spi/ocnpfiis 



