Pezomachus.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 237 



August (Bignell) ; Surrey (Capron) ; Land's End district (Marquand) ; 

 Weybridge and Box Hill (Hcauniont) ; MaUlon in Essex (Fitch) ; a female 

 bred by Barrett from Sa/i/r/iia carpini (Buckler); Dorsetshire (ICntom. 

 i88r, p. 137); Chobham (Butler). I'iffard has given me a female from 

 Felden in Herts., and Bloomfield another (recorded as /'. bellicosin in the 

 Nat. Hist. Hastings) from Guestling in Sussex. 



55. geo chares, Fihst. 



PezoiJiac/ius geoc/iares, Ftirst. Wiegm. Arch. 1850, p. 231, ?. 



Antennae with the basal flagellar joint longer than the second, the fifth 

 very nearly twice longer than broad. Meta- longer than the meso-thorax ; 

 petiolar area elongate and obliciue, its basal costa forming a short ridge in 

 the centre and thence obsolete to the strong and obtuse apophyses. 

 Scutellum wanting. Abdomen very diffusely punctate and pubescent, 

 somewhat nitidulous ; basal segment not broad, petiole very slightly 

 explanate, post-petiole more strongly and divergently ; spiracles not pro- 

 jecting ; terebra fully as long as the basal segment. 



Head black, with the palpi and mandibles piceous. Antennae piceous, 

 with the thrfee basal joints clear red and the following rufescent. Thorax 

 red with the sternum and pleurae below, extending centrally nearly to the 

 scutellar region, black. Abdomen deep black with the three basal 

 segments, except the apical margin of the third, clear red. Legs fulvous ; 

 apices of the hind femora, with the intermediate and hind tibiae, black. 

 Length, 3I mm. 



This species is distinguished from P. acarornm, which it very closely 

 resembles in colour, by the scanty and very diffuse pubescence and the 

 shorter fifth flagellar joint ; in structure it is much more nearly related to 

 F. palpatory the less prominent petiolar spiracles and piceous femoral 

 apices being very variable characters, and I should have thought it 

 probably synonymous, in spite of the more elongate and narrower abdomen, 

 much shorter and less attenuate basal flagellar joints, were it not that the 

 latter is not at all variable in size and is so much larger. 



Ratzeburg (Ichn. d. Forst. iii. 147) says the colour of the thorax varies 

 greatly, the disc and petiolar area being sometimes black-marked with the 

 second segment less pure red and the third entirely dark. It is possible 

 he confused it with P. viv^ans. 



In introducing this species as British (Trans. Knt. Soc. 1882, p. 148), 

 Bridgman says, "Taken at Deal, on the 18th April, 1881, a Pezonuxchiis, 

 which I believe to be this species ; it differs only from I'orster's description 

 in having the third abdominal segment black, and red only at the sides." 

 Beaumont took two at Harting in Sussex, early in Sei)tember, 1S99. I 

 have taken three specimens by sweeping dead reeds, on the banks of the 

 Oipping, at Ipswich, 2nd October, 1895, and loth March, 1896. On the 

 Continent it is recorded as bred fr(jm Psyche lichenella by van \'ollen- 

 hoven, through Peri/ilits Jhivipes from Tortri.x picenna by Ratzeburg, and 

 from Fumea uitidella by Kirchner. 



