Pimphi.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 117 



The 9 var. parallela is said to be smaller with the terebra slightly 

 longer, the radius not apically sinuate and the legs more rufescent. It 

 was described from a single damaged specimen, found in Sweden in 1877, 

 and no one seems to have since found it. 



This species has exactly the peculiarly slender and sveldt outline of 

 P. oculaloria but its metathorax is less, and the whole abdomen more, 

 closely and strongly punctate, the notauli are less deeply impressed, the 

 metanotum with the hind tibial bands and the external orbits are black, 

 the stigma darker and the nervellus less distinctly postfurcal. P. oniata 

 may be distinguished from the present species by its coarsely punctate 

 metathorax with the areola distinct, slightly depressed, apically incomplete 

 and laterally obsoletely costate, besides its red mesonotum and scutellum 

 (cf. P. I'll fipU lira, p. 6iy. 



Brischke, followed by Schmeideknecht in 1888, differentiated P.ovivora 

 from P. angcns by the entirely or partl\' red mcsosternum, but in 1906 the 

 latter certainly correctly unites them, though under the latter name, remark- 

 ing, " Zu P. angens gehort auch zum Teil P. ovirofa. Boh. Der letztere 

 Name wiirde die Prioritat haben, allein die Art ist eine Mischart." But 

 if even that in his opinion invalidate its claim, P. angcns of Gravenhorst 

 is hardly in better plight ! If both sexes of Boheman's species were bred 

 together their synonym}- is extremely probable. 



This cannot be the P. ovivora of Walckenaer, since lie says ( Hist. Nat. 

 Ins. apt. I. 175) of some very small species, "/*. ovivora and P. arachniter 

 pierce with their invisible ovipositors the soft pellicle of the spiders' eggs 

 and, without rupturing them, introduce their own eggs into the liquid. A 

 winged insect eventually emerges from the egg, a phenomenon which 

 has induced naturalists to believe that spiders could produce four-winged 

 flies. . . . This is also what made Aristotle think that spiders' eggs pro- 

 duced little worms (Hist. An. viii, cap. 27)." Some Prodotrypid is here 

 referred to. 



It is extremely improbable that Ratzeburg's male was that of the present 

 species, since he says Brischke bred it early in August from lar\-ae of 

 A'ematus septentrmialis and cocoons of Lophynis ?fnittiorum, althougli the 

 three bred by Jacobi from their own cocoons in a spider's nest at the end of 

 July are probably correctly here placed, which is more than can be said of 

 those recorded by him from Geometra alniaria and perhaps G. tiliaria early 

 in October (iii. 258). This species is not infrequent on spiders' eggs in 

 Scandinavia, Boheman originally bred seven specimens from a single 

 nest; and Brischke bred it from yellow, petiolate spiders' nests on cran- 

 berr}' in Prussia. It is rare in Germany, where Taschenberg raised it 

 from the eggs of an Epeira and of another spider, and is found in the 

 autumn and late summer in damp and shady places, frequently among 

 alder bushes. Giraud also bred it in France from spiders' nests and Tos- 

 quinet found it in several Belgian localities from May to September. 

 P.ovivora figured in our 1870 " Catalogus "; but P. angtns \va<. first in- 

 troduced by Rev. T. A. Marshall in Knt. Ann. 1874, p. 144, on the 

 strength of a single female sent to him from Northumberland by ]\Ir. Bold. 

 There is not a single subsecjuent British record except the erroneous one 

 by Marshall, from Cymatopliora jlavicornis (F.nt. Ann. 1874, p. 125); but I 

 possess two beautiful females in Dr. Edward Capron's collection, doubtless 

 taken in the neighbourhood of Shere in Surrey, about 1880. 



