Nematopodius.] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 265 



The su-called " Nemalopodius " ater has nolliing to do with this gL-niis 

 (cf. Bridg.-Fitch, Entom. 1883, p. 38). 



Tabic of Species. 



(2). 1. Clypeus apically cmarginate ; mclanotuin with 



basal costa only i. FORMOSUS, Grav. 



(i). 2. Clypeus apically bidentate ; metanotum fully 



areated 2. LINEARIS, Grav. 



I. formosus, Grav. 



Nematopodius formosus, Gr. I. E. ii. 957 ; S. v. Voll. Schets. I. pi. i, fij^. 24, 9 ; 

 Tasch. Zeits. Ges Nat. 1865, p. 112; Schm. Opusc. Ichn. viii. 578, 6 9. 



A slender and strongly elongate species. Head black, with face, mouth, 

 cheeks and nearly the whole of the orbits pale stramineous, and the man- 

 dibles apically ferrugineous ; clypeus centrally emarginate. Antennae 

 longer than half the body with usually two joints, far beyond the centre, 

 white above and ferrugineous beneath. Thorax black, with most of the 

 pronotum and the callosities before the radix white ; sometimes also the 

 sternum, pleurae and apex of the metathorax rosy, witli rarely the meta- 

 thorax mainly red, only the disc being more or less black. Scutellum 

 wholly or laterally white, with its apex, like the post-scutellum, badious. 

 Abdomen narrow and twice longer than the thorax, pilose and very 

 smooth ; black, with all the segments narrowly white-margined, and in $ 

 with segments three to five sub-badious ; first segment finear, basally 

 distinctly denticulate ; post-petiole twice longer than broad, of $ very 

 slightly intumescent with spiracles not behind its centre ; terebra about 

 one-fifth of the length of the abdomen, infuscate with red spicula, and 

 j)ilose, apically obtuse valvulae. Legs slender ; the anterior testaceous, 

 with coxae and trochanters pale stramineous ; hind ones nigrescent, with 

 femora and apices of coxae dark testaceous ; hind tibiae contracted and 

 slightly cuived at the base ; front coxae obtusely denticulate centrally 

 beneath. Wings narrow, hyaline, with stigma piceous ; radix and tegulae 

 white ; nervelius strongly post-furcal, intercepted in its centre, with the 

 humeral nervure and apex of the posterior entirely wanting. Length, 

 7-9 mm. 



The rufescent markings are usually much more noticeable in the male. 

 The post-petiole is not apically excised, as figured by van Vollenhoven. 



If this species, w-hich is almost unrecorded from northern Europe, has 

 hitherto been found in Britain at all, it nmst have been extremely rare. 

 It is said to be taken in June, July and September, on Umbellifcrae., walls, 

 palings and old wood ('r/. Tasch. llym. Deut. p. 58), and to be usually 

 gregari(jus throughout central and southern Europe. Marshall's record of 

 it in his 1870 Catalogus is probably based upon the single male in the 

 National Collection, and certainly no one has found it here since that 

 time, until I was so fortunate as to take four females upon the window- 

 pane in my bedroom at Monks' Soham House, Suffolk, during July ist to 

 1 6th, 1905. I should suspect them of preying upon some xylophagous 

 coleopteron devouring the old timber of which the house is mainly com- 

 posed, and the occurrence of four examples in the same situation proves 

 their presence to have not been accidental. None occurred there in 1906. 



