Pimpla.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 113 



37. oculatoria, Fab. 



Ichneumon oculatorius. Fab. E.S. Suppl. 221. Crypttis oculatorius. Fab. 

 Pie2. 78. Pimpla oculatoria, Gr. I.E. iii. 154; Holmgr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 1854, 

 p. 8'.) ; et 1860, n. 10, p. 26 ; Tasch. Zeits. Ges. Nat, 1863, pp. 61 et 264 ; Thorns. 

 O.E. viii. 751 et xiii. 1412; Schm. Zool. Jahrb. 1888, p. 498, i 9 ; Voll. 

 Pinac. xxi, fig. 7, i . 



A slender shining species, \\ ith red thorax and tuberculate abdomen. 

 Head black and strongly narrowed behind the emarginate eyes ; of J 

 with mouth, face and frontal, as well as sometimes external, orbits flavous ; 

 of 9 with palpi, all the orbits, mandibles except apically, clypeus and 

 often two facial dots flavous, and the face often mainly rufescent ; 

 clvpeus convex and apically neither depressed nor emarginate ; checks 

 \ery short. Antennae filiform, longer than half the body, fulvous with 

 the four or five basal joints black above ; scape of ^ flavous beneath. 

 Thorax gibbulous, shining, black with fine, superficial puncturation and 

 sparse pubescence ; propleurae flavous ; mesothorax red with lines before 

 and below the radix, often two longitudinal discal vittae and in J pectoral 

 and pleural marks, fla\ous ; notauli distinct to the centre ; two very con- 

 stant dots before the apex of the metathorax flavous, and marks on the 

 metapleurae sometimes red ; metathorax evenly and somewhat strongly 

 punctate and pilose with only obsolete traces of areola ; spiracles quite 

 circular. Scutellum red with its sides, apex and the postscutellum flavous. 

 Abdomen slender, deeply punctate with interstices glabrous and nitidulous, 

 colour variable ; of ^ cylindrical, thrice longer and a little narrower than 

 the thorax ; of 9 somewhat shorter, as broad as thorax, subcylindrical 

 and a little constricted at base and apex ; segments of 9 quadrate and of 

 (5 elongate, usually black with a ro.sy band before their apices, often 

 extending laterally and rarely occupying the whole abdomen ; seventh 

 and often sixth segments entirely red ; all transverseb' impressed at their 

 apical third and distinctly tuberculate laterally ; terebra a third or a 

 quarter the length of the abdomen, valvulae black and pilose, spicula red 

 or stramineous. Legs somewhat slender, pale stramineous-fulvous with 

 apices of the tarsal joints infuscate ; the anterior legs, especially in ^ , 

 paler ; hind coxae and trochanters variegated, and the tibiae pale with 

 their extreme apices and a band before the base infuscate ; apical tarsal 

 joint fully double length of the penultimate, claws small and in 9 basally 

 lobate. Wings normal, subhyaline ; stigma always pale testaceous ; 

 radix and tegulae flavous ; areolet irregular, subsessile or petiolate with 

 its outer nervure pellucid at base and apex ; nervellus strongly postfurcal 

 and interce{)ting hardly above the centre. Length, 7 — 10 mm. 



1 lolingren says this species is very similar to P. w/Vwv/, but mav be 

 known by the broadly rufescent thoracic markings; it is certainly closely 

 aliii-d to the genus Polysphincta in its slender form, short ovipositor, ri-d 

 marking and incomplete areolet. 



1 can find no details of this species' ecdvsis, though it has for so long 

 been known to devour spiders' eggs. Gravenhorst gives the fullest 

 account amounting to the facts that two ^ J and one 9 were bred on 

 the 1 8th -March from the egg-bag of some uninstanccd spider, taken among 

 grass during the preceding autumn ; their larvae had destroyed nearly all 

 the eggs and undergone their whole metamorphoses in the nest (refi'rred to 

 by Westwood, Mod. Class, ii. 143 et Laboulbene, Ann. Soc. Fr. 1858, 



I 



