114 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. \_Pmpla. 



p. 8oo)/''- Giraud alone identifies this species' pabulum as the eggs oiEpeira 

 diadeinata, in France ; and Brischke bred it from spiders' nests in Prussia. 

 At a meeting of the Ya\\.. Soc. Lend, on 2nd Aj)ril, 1866, Mr. W. Rogers 

 exhibited specimens of this ichneumon, bred by him from the egg-bag of 

 a spider found under loose bark of an oak-fence ; Smith and Desvignes 

 both said that they also had bred the species but always from bramble- 

 sticks : if it were not for Bignell's record of this species from the same 

 situation, I should suspect confusion in the latters' statement with 

 Pej-ithous. 



The Revd O. Pickard-Cambridge has gi\en me two females of this 

 species, together with the egg-bag of Epeira diademala, from which they 

 emerged on 6th May, 1903. On opening the bag, I found four soft, pure 

 white, cottony cocoons of very fine, thin and close texture, lying imme- 

 diately between the outer covering of the bag and the yellow egg-fluff, 

 though so interwoven upon the latter as to be inextricable. Mixed with 

 this fluff were about fifty little spiders, which had certainly emerged before 

 the Pimplae had completed their cocoons since one, with no trace of its 

 egg, was found inside one of the latter. The remainder of the contents 

 of the cocoons consisted of several very distinct exuviae and the crumpled 

 larva-skin, protruding from which I was delighted to recognize the very 

 distinctive rostrum of the below-described larva. All the four cocoons 

 Avere evacuated : a third female had failed to emerge and was lying just 

 beneath the outer covering of the bag, but the fourth had evidently made 

 an unobserved exit and could not be found. 



On the 19th No\ember, 1899,1 found an egg-bag of the same species of 

 spider under the coping of a garden wall in Ipswich, which contained an 

 ichneumonidous larva of most unusual form and colour. Soon after it had 

 cast one of its skins (I do not know if it casts more than 

 one), on the 14th of the following March I examined it. It was 

 dull ochre in colour with nigrescent markings ( as depicted) ; 

 the curiously elongate head was somewhat paler with a darker 

 longitudinal central line ; the eyes were dark, distinctly 

 prominent and, in some lights, sanguineous ; just beyond 

 them is a pair of minute .^ antennae and, near the apex of 

 the rostrum another pair of setae (? palpi) ; the apex of the 

 rostrum appears to be furnished with a tubular mouth, bearing 

 no mandibles and is, in some lights, sanguineous. The mark- 

 ings probably represent the alimentary canal and muscles, 

 - ., . 1 . since exuviae are quite visible before being ejected. Above 



Life-size \\n. . ^ . i i 



the apices of the posterior segments are somewhat ele- 

 elevated, doubtless as locomotive organs, since the larva possesses neither 

 feet nor setae. The underside is similarly marked, though a little paler 

 and much smoother. The head is somew hat obliciuely bicarinate below 

 and the second segment apically emarginate, gi\ing the former freer 

 motion. The body is capable of only vertical flexibility and, on a piece 

 of paper, a very slight propulsion only is shown by means of the oral 

 sucker. Its length then was 5^ mm., though perhaps not fully grown. 

 The skin from which it had but shortly emerged had almost identical 

 markings ; it had split down one side as far as the third segment only, 



* cf. also Laboulbene, Ann. Soc. Fr. 1871, p. 444, " Note sur les Moeurs de la Pimpla oculatoria 

 et sur les Ravases qu' clle pent prodnire dans les nids d'Araignees," in wbicli he recounts how the 

 larvae devoured nearly all the eggs oiEpeira diacUma and eventually produced six females, but no 

 males, of this ichueninon. 



