104 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [Pi/iip/a. 



length of abdomen. Legs somewhat stout ; the anterior with coxae and 

 trochanters black and usually flavous beneath, tibiae and tarsi flavidous 

 with a paler band before base of the former ; posterior tarsi white with 

 the apices of the joints nigrescent ; hind coxae and trochanters black or 

 badious usually with the apices of the latter flavous, their femora always 

 fulvous, tibiae black with a white band before the base and a red band 

 before the apex ; hind tarsi with the apical joint thrice longer than the 

 penultimate and the claws simple, not basally lobate. Wings normal and 

 usually slightly clouded ; stigma piceous with base paler, radix^and tegulae 

 concolourous or stramineous ; areolet irregular, subsessile ; nervellus 

 intercepting far above the centre. Length, a^\ — 9 mm. 



It is at once recognised by the elongate, flavidous, recumbent mesonotal 

 pubescence, tricoloured tibiae and laterally rufescent abdomen. It some- 

 what resembles P. tiirionellae in the outline of the body, but the stouter and 

 apically subclavate antennae, and the colour of the stouter legs will distin- 

 guish it. 



The dense thoracic pubescence is a perfectly satisfactory character and it 

 may be instantly known by it from all other species of the genus ; the tibiae 

 are very rarely without red colouration in their apical half and the lateral 

 rufescence of the abdomen is variable in extent, though always present on 

 at least the apical angles of the posterior segments. I have noted no 

 other variation in my hundred specimens, and am sure those of Brischke 

 must relate to some other species. 



The name maculator is now in general use on the Continent for this 

 species, which has been so long known as scanica ; I have not seen 

 Fabricius' original description, but in his Piezata (1804) he certainly 

 inadequately describes it : " Cryptus niger abdominis lateribus pedibusque 

 rufis," making no mention of a white tibial band, as is the case in P. turion- 

 ellae, immediately following it : one does not like to give up old friends 

 without a struggle ! Thomson ascribes the name scanica to Linneus. 



This species is associated in my mind with fir- woods in the early spring. 

 From 1894 to 1904 I beat it annually, though more abundantly in some 

 years, from Piniis sylvestris, Taxus haccata and Picea exceha in the Bentley 

 Woods, near Ipswich, from the ist February to the end of April, when it 

 appeared to desert the pines ; when fallen into the umbrella it feigns 

 death, contracts its antennae and legs, and lies motionless, closely 

 resembling the surrounding fir-needles. During May the females are 

 found on hawthorn, birch, etc. I have not met with it in June, but in 

 July both sexes have been very sparingly seen on flowers of Heracleum 

 sphondyiimn ; and in the early autumn on those of Angelica, wild carrot 

 and Cniciis paluslris. The male is not found later than 24th September. 

 In October the females, which alone hibernate, are again seeking Coni- 

 ferae, though whether they pass the winter in the foliage or beneath the 

 bark is unknown ; one, flying round a yew-tree in a Ryde garden on loth 

 October, lived fourteen days in a pill box. Piffard has taken the female 

 as late as November 15th, so it is doubtful if there be any quiescent hiber- 

 nation in its stricter sense. Miss Chawner has bred a male — by far the 

 rarer sex with us — at Burley, Hants., from some ? Tortrix chrysalis on a 

 hazel leaf : the parasitic larva appears to have broken through the host's 

 chrysalis and has spun for itself a cocoon of white, semitransparent, papy- 

 raceous texture, exceeding in length the chrj'salis (parts of which adhere 

 externally) by one millimetre, its total length reaching ten millimetres and 

 that of the emerged parasite seven millimetres. 



