Siiipnus.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 245 



however, are much longer and more slender, the abdomen dephinale and 

 the head posteriorly contracted. 



Rare near London, in June (Stephens) ; Fairlight in Sussex (Hastings 

 List). Mr. E. A. Butler bred one specimen, which I have examined, of 

 this species, in 18S1, "from a silky white cylindrical cocoon, with an 

 opaque white girdle round its centre, which was three lines long. The 

 host was a lepidopterous larva, feeding on honeysuckle, collected in 

 Brecknockshire" (Entom. 18S1, p. 139 ei 1882, p. 223). It is probably 

 by far our commonest species in Britain. Capron found it abundantly 

 at Shere in Surrey ; Piffard and 1 have taken it at Felden in Herts., in 

 September; and Tuck has sent it to me from Finborough Park in Suffolk. 



ATRACTODES, Gravenhorst. 



Gr. I. E. iii. 789(1829). 



Head transverse, usually buccate, but not cubical ; eyes oval, entire, 

 somewhat small and occasionally pilose : central joints of the labial palpi 

 normal, the apical not unusually elongate. Antennae of $ filiform, some- 

 what short, about half the length of the body and sometimes stout, with 

 the apical joint oblong-ovate ; of $ setaceous and a little shorter than the 

 body. Thorax very rarely distinctly punctate ; metathorax rarely produced 

 and nearly always gradually declived throughout, with a parallel-sided, 

 longitudinal, sub-impressed central area, consisting of the always coalesced 

 areola and petiolar area. Scutellum triangular and gibbulous. Abdomen 

 petiolate, sub-glabrous and strongly nitidulous ; of $ more or less dis- 

 tinctly compressed laterally, often narrower than the thorax, of 6 always 

 deplanate ; oblong-ovate or linear-lanceolate ; basal segment sub-linear, 

 usually margined, slightly explanate apically and not reaching beyond the 

 hind trochanters, with spiracles beyond its centre ; second segment very 

 rarely transverse, usually longer than broad and gradually contracted 

 basally, with a fine lateral impressed line reaching to the spiracles ; terebra 

 hardly exserted and nearly hidden by the hypopygium. Legs somewhat 

 slender, hind ones sub-incrassate ; calcaria often curved and the onyches 

 usually elongate ; front tibiae anteriorly pubescent but not spinulose. 

 Wings normal ; radial nervure emitted from beyond the centre of the 

 stigma ; areolet pentagonal, with the outer nervure often obsolete. 



Gravenhorst mentions the affinity of this genus with the Ichneumontnac, 

 and Haliday thought it hardly distinct from Stilpnus. 



It is very difiicult in the majority of cases to synonymize the thirteen 

 short descriptions of Haliday's species, hardly any of which have hitherto 

 been recognized on the Continent ; only those which were supplemented 

 by Holmgren have been adopted by Forster, among whose mulliludinous 

 concourse they, in all probability, figure under unknown synonyms. I 

 have taken a central course, however, and allowed such of them as ap- 

 pear to merit specific rank to stand in our fauna, at least for the time 

 being. Three have, I think, been described subsequently by Continental 

 authors, two others sink as preoccupied, and there can be little doubt that 

 A, prof^erator is referable to a distinct genus which ought, jierhaps, to l)e 

 placed in the Tryphoninae. 



