Cryptus?^ BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 3 1 1 



The male sometimes has the intermediate or hind femora black-marked, 

 the latter at others being nearly entirely black ; the female sometimes has 

 a mandibular mark, tiie clypeus and the hind coxae internally, red ; at 

 others it has the anterior tarsi explanate, with the three central joints short 

 and encircled by bristles. 



The male differs from that of C. allHiforiiis in having only the facial 

 orbits and sometimes an epistomal dot white, the frons anteriorly ex- 

 cavate, the femora mainly black, with the anterior coxae and trochanters 

 white-marked, with the basal segment dull and finely coriaceous. 



This and the next species may be known by the nitidulous frons, sub- 

 buccate cheeks and obsolete apophyses. 



Thomson says the male varies in the following directions : — hind femora 

 at base and apex black (var. difficilis), or also black above ; the epistoma 

 and clypeus laterally black, and sometimes, in addition, the scutellum with 

 only an apical white dot and the upper margin of the pronotum with only 

 dots at the humeri and before the tegulae ( Diaime, var. 3) or the scutellum 

 and margin of pronotum may be immaculate (Dianae, ^, Grav.). 



Crypius obscurus is an abundant species throughout Britain, and fre- 

 quently bred from Noctiia plecta, Taeniocampa popule/i, Hadena ihalassina 

 (Buckler) ; Zygaciia filipendulae (Entom. 1883, p. 35), Smerinthus populi 

 at the end of May, in Devon (Bignell) ; Bombyx quercus (Laboulbene) ; 

 Dianthaecia capsitico/a, Tenthredo instabilis, Kl., Taeniocampa cruda 

 (Marshall); and Euchelia jacobaeae (Entom. 1884, p. 67). In February, 

 1893, I dug up a chrysalis of Taeniocampa gothica at Ipswich, the inside 

 of which was entirely occupied by a parasite's cocoon of a dull brown 

 colour and rough texture. On the 12th of April following, a female of the 

 present species emerged from it through a large and irregularly circular 

 hole on one side of the capital extremity, from which the operculum 

 was entirely removed. I have also found the species dead in Noctuid 

 chrysalids beneath aspen bark at Brantham, and imagines have occurred 

 to me at Clopton, Brandon and Barham in Suffolk, flying along hedges, in 

 June and July. Tuck has sent me examples from Bury St. Edmund's ; 

 Piffard from Felden ; Cross from Ely ; Clutten from Burnley ; Capron 

 from Shere ; Miss Chawner from the New Forest ; and Hamm from 

 Reading and Oxford. It has also been recorded from London, Devon, 

 Salop, Scotland, Netley ; as very common in Norfolk, where Wainwright 

 has found it at West Runton : Land's End, Bradley Wood in Yorks., St. 

 Issey in Cornwall, Carlisle, Little Moor in Wigton, Essex, and the Hastings 

 District. G. Stockby records it (The Naturalist, 1854, p. 2 28) as having 

 been not uncommon in Hainault Forest, in June; Chitty has taken it at 

 Huntingfied and St. Margaret's Bay in Kent. 



II. albatorius, Vill. 



Ichneumon albatoritis, Vill. Ent. Linn. iii. 156, <5 . Crypius albatorius, Gr. I. E. ii. 

 536 ; Ste. 111. M. vii. 285 ; Tasch. Zeils. Ges. Nat. 1865, p. 82, <5 ; T.schek, Verb, 

 z.-b. (]es. 1870, p. 117, (J 9. C. obscurus, Gr. I. K. ii 54S, 9 (part) ; Thoins. O. E. 

 V. 481, xxi. 2351, <; . 



Shining, punctulate, profusely pubescent. Head black, narrowed pos- 

 teriorly, with white pubescence ; clypeus discreted, a[)ically depressed and 

 broadly rounded ; frons excavate, with a central sulcus ; occiput deeply 



