274 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. \Spilocrypius. 



Mr. Ransom sent me twenty-one cocoons of the same host from Sudbury 

 in March, 1900, and of these eight contained living larvae of C. cimhicis 

 in their own cocoons ; one, pupae of a Chalcid ; three, TricJiiosoinae which 

 had died after shedding the larval skin, leaving only nine healthy insects, a 

 very small proportion. 



The larva of C. cimbicis is soft, fleshy, without setae, and entirely pale 

 primrose, without any markings whatever ; the lateral border is well 

 defined. There are twelve segments (not 13 or 14 as figured by Westwood, 

 Mod. Intro, ii. p. 140, fig. 76), a rather darker sub-cutaneous very narrow 

 dorsal line, and a conspicuous dark sub-cutaneous cloud occupying the 

 centre of the back. Between this dark ground-work and the skin are 

 numerous large whitish and dull bodies at irregular intervals, surrounded 

 by innumerable circular granules, which appear to pretty evenly occupy 

 the whole of the sub-cutaneous area throughout the insect. At first I 

 could detect no distinct head ; later the larva moved and I found it 

 possessed of a well developed, retractile head with large eyes, clypeus 

 and a powerful pair of bifid mandibles, all of which are outlined with 

 ferrugineous colouring. The larva is 6 mm. in length. Its cocoon is 

 quadrilateral, divided from each other by an extremely fine papyraceous 

 fabric, and is i\ mm. in length. This dividing partition is doubtless a 

 prevention against epidemics, since in one cell I found a dead and mouldy 

 larva with quite healthy ones in the adjoining cells. 



The Chalcid pupae are of interest to us as being, very probably, hyper- 

 parasitic upon C. cimhicis. They are entirely orange, with a distinct central 

 furrow on the face, and sanguineous between the apices of the mandibles. 

 All the limbs, etc., are quite visible, being packed away upon the breast. 

 These pupae were in no cocoon of their own manufacture, but loosely 

 falling about inside those of the Trichiosomae, and they fell out at once 

 upon the latter being opened ; only one was attached, perhaps accidentally, 

 to a dead, mouldy, and shrivelled lyichioso/iia larva, whence they had all 

 emerged. In all there were ten of these pupae, which appeared quite rigid 

 and immovable ; some had a long anal appendage, some had not. This 

 cannot be a terebra, and consequently I am inclined to think them some 

 species of Fteromahis rather than the same as Ratzeburg's Tory/iius. 

 The imagines began to emerge on 21st May following, but they were 

 unfortunately crushed by the Continental post. 



Of the eight cocoons of Trichiosoma tibialis containing C. cimbicis., sent 

 by Mr. Ransom, I discovered on 23rd May that one contained a C. cimbicis 

 cocoon, which was inhabited by seven hyperparasitic larvae. These last 

 obviously pertained to a species of Pteromahis, since they exactly agree 

 with that figured by Marshall in the E.M.M. 1895, p. 253, excepting only 

 that they are somewhat more cylindrical and the segmentation is quite 

 distinct. They are pale chocolate colour with the apical extremity nearly 

 colourless and a greater sub-cutaneous density, arising probably from the 

 alimentary canal. In the cocoon was also the larva oi cimbicis, reduced to 

 a very small and shapeless mass of a deep brown colour. The Chalcid 

 larvae varied greatly in size, some being 2\ mm. in length, and some only 

 \\ mm. These larvae cannot, I think, belong to the same species as the 

 above Chalcid pupae, since the latter occupied the whole interior of the 

 Trichiosoma cocoon, and these larvae occupied only one cimbicis cocoon, 

 the surrounding cocoons containing healthy parasite larvae. Westwood 



