Piniphi.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 73 



cimbicis, being woven upon one another in a more or less solid mass, and 

 the external confonnation of each varies with the space allotted by those 

 surrounding it ; the imago escapes through a somewhat regularly circular 

 hole, entirelv exxised, near the apex. Besides those which succeeded in 

 emerging were seA-eral which failed to attain maturity ; some died in the 

 larval condition and are now flat, dry, shrivelled, chocolate-brown with 

 about thirteen stronglv transverse segments and a small, lighter, round, 

 smooth head showing darker mandibles. In one cocoon containing a 

 defunct larva is the remains of a skin, pointing to the conclusion that the 

 larva casts its skin for another larval one after completing its cocoon. 

 Others died as pupae, with the legs drawn close to the body, the antennae 

 folded forward on the sternum, the terebra reflexed over the dorsum of 

 the abdomen and the basal segment not, as is usual in ichneumonidous 

 nvmphs, pressed closely upon the metathorax. Unfortunatelv I kept no 

 record of the total number, but 1 still possess twenty-six of the parasites 

 upon the single caterpillar; its prolificness and the ubiquity of its present 

 liost argue rather retiring habits in the imago than genuine rarity. 



14. brevicornis, (ira-,'. 



Piiiipla brcviconiis, Gr. I.E. iii. 211; Holrngr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 1860, n. 10, 

 p. 24 ; Tasch. Zeits. Ges. Nat. ISd.S, pp. 60 et 268 ; Thorns. O.E. viii, 755 et xiii. 

 1414; Schm. Zool. Jahrb. 1888, p. 522, <^ ? . P. laficeps, Katz. Ichn. d. Forst. 

 ii. 94, (sic) c? . 



A shining, uneven black species with legs mainly red and terebra as 

 long as abdomen. Head transverse, shining, smooth and hardly narrowed 

 behind the eyes, viewed froni in front rotund-triangular with the cheeks 

 short; vertex broad, face diffusely and coarsely punctate ; palpi testaceous, 

 head immaculate. Antennae filiform, somewhat stout and neither apically 

 attenuate nor longer than half the body, generally ferrugineous apically 

 beneath, but not pale basally; (J with scape in typical form immaculate. 

 Thorax gibbulous, shining with a flavidous callosity before the radix; 

 mesonotum sub-rotund, finel)' rugose-punctate with notauli somewhat 

 distinct ; metathorax feebly and diffusely punctate ; areola smooth, later- 

 ally finely costate and apically incomplete ; spiracles circular. Scutellum 

 black. Abdomen shining, black, nearly double length of head and thorax, 

 deeply, very closely and evenly punctate, and finelv pubescent ; of J 

 cylindrical sublinear and as broad as thorax, of 9 fusiform-cylindrical and 

 somewhat explanate centrally and hardly broader than the thorax ; basal 

 segment moderately elevated and apically alutaceo-punctate on either 

 side, of 9 subquadrate, almost shorter than the hind coxae and distinctly 

 bicarinate ; second to sixth segments stronglv punctate, apically broadly 

 smooth, shining and elevated, laterally distinctly tuberculate ; terebra 

 hardly as long as abdomen, or in typical form longer (^abdomen 3^, tere- 

 bra 4^ — Tasch.), black with the valvulae setigerous. Legs somewhat 

 short and not ver\- slender, fulvous or testaceous with variable markings ; 

 typically : — coxae black with hind ones of 9 sometimes partly red ; tro- 

 chanters black with the apices more or less broadly red ; hind tibiae dull 

 stramineous, apically and befon- the base and their tarsal claws, as well as 

 often apices of the tarsal joints, infuscate ; apical tarsal joint subdilated 

 and two-and-a-half times, longer than the penultimate ; their claws in 9 

 basally lobate. Wings moderately broad, distinctly flavescent, stigma 

 stramineous (or piceous), radix and tegulae pale stramineous ; areolet 

 irregular, subsessile ; radial nc r\urr apicaih' straight; nervellus subobso- 



