Pimpla.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 89 



I possess this species from Felden in Herts. (Piffard); in an office, City 

 Road, in the heart of London (Newbery); Tostock, . Bungay and Fin- 

 borough Park, in Suffolk (Tuck); Rossbeigh, in Co. Kerry (Donisthorpe); 

 Wimbledon and Chiswick (Sich) ; Lyndhurst (Adams); Shere, in Surrey 

 (Capron); Ripple and Kingsdown, 'in Kent (Sladen); Greenings (W. 

 Saunders); ?^Iablethorpe in Lines, and South Leverton, in Notts. (Thorn- 

 lev); Filton, near Bristol (Charbonnier) ; Thomwick Bay, near Flam- 

 borough and Moulton, in Suffolk (KUiott). I have noticed it in Suffolk 

 at Icklingham, Assington, Southwold on carrot, Marlesford, Famham, 

 Bruisyard, Rishangles, Kentford, Brandon marshes, Herringswell Fen, 

 commonly in Tuddenham Fen, flying on outskirts of Bentley Woods, 

 Alderton'on Foeniculum viilgair, Harleston, Henstead marsh, Claydon 

 bridge, Barnby Broad, iNIonks' Soham in my paddock, Badingham, 

 Bramford marshes and Barham. Elsewhere it has occurred to me abun- 

 dantly in Wicken Fen, in Cambs., at the beginning of June and there I 

 beat from hawthorn flowers the above described sexes /;/ cop. and I have 

 taken them in the same interesting situation at the adjacent Devils Ditch ; 

 females have also been secured at ^latley Bogin the New Forest, Shalfleet, 

 Rookley and Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight; Wroxham, Filby, Winterton, 

 Hickling and Surlingham, in the Norfolk Broads^ But it is at Barton 

 Mills, near Mildenhall, that I have especially noticed both sexes, which 

 have there occurred on Angelica flowers in osier carrs, on the banks of 

 the Lark River, in great profusion, during the last eight years. 



[Pimpla nigricans. Thorns. 



Head with the vertex hardly narrow and not emarginate behind the 

 eyes ; clypeus obviously depressed and emarginate apically ; cheeks very 

 short ; all the orbits and ^ face immaculate. Antennae not apicall}- 

 attenuate. No pale callosity before the radix, notauli distinct ; meta- 

 thoracic spiracles circular, areola incomplete. Abdomen tuberculate, of 

 ^ linear with the second segment longer than broad ; terebra short, with 

 the spicula apically obtusely rounded. Legs red, front femora of S ^^■ 

 cised beneath ; onychii elongate, and in 9 stout with the claws basal ly 

 lobate. Wings with the radial ner\ure hardly sinuate apically ; nervellus 

 subantefurcal and not intercepting above the centre. 



This insect is described as a distinct species by Thomson ( O.E. viii. 

 754) and placed in his genus Kpiiinis [lib. cit. xiii. 1 + 13). He says it is 

 very similar to P. detrita, but somewhat larger with the ante-radical cal- 

 losities immaculate, the fifth tarsal joint not longer than the third, in 9 

 the glabrous apices of the segments are a little broader and in $ the 

 scape and coxae are entirely black. I certainly consider that Smiede- 

 knecht was more correct in his earlier consideration of this fonn as a 

 variety oi P. detrita (Zool. Jahrb. 1888, p. 514) than in allowing it specific 

 rank as is done in Opusc. Ichn. 1099. If the keen-eyed Thomson could 

 find no better grounds for discrimination, we may rest assured that it is at 

 most but a variety of P. detrita : " Fine scharfe Grenze zwischen dieser 

 Art und der P. detrita existiert nicht." 



I have not searched through my long series of the former species to 

 find this form, which is said to be rare in southern Sweden and has been 

 recognised nowhere else on the Continent, since Bridgman's introduction 



♦ In very wet and wild marshes, sucli as Horning, Ranworth, Wroxham, Surlingham, Rockland 

 Broads and Wicken Fen, I have taken a form of the 9 differing in nothing but its longer terebra 

 (abdomen 4.^, terebra 2J, mm.)- 



