BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 167 



I. quadriannulatus, Grav. 



IchneuDion (juadrianiiiilafiis, C.r. I. E. i. 556, 9 . Hypomecits alhitarsis, Wesni. 

 Nouv. Mem. Ac. Briix. 1S44, p. 147; Bui. Ac. Brux. Annexe, 1853-54, pi. IT. 14-17; 

 lib. cit. 1855, p. 410; Ilolmgr. Ichn. Suec. ii. 295; Thorns. O. E. xix. 21 14; Berth. 

 Ann. Soc. Fr. 1896, p. 298, S 9 . 



A slender, dark species, finely punctate \Yith white pubescence. Head 

 black ; clypeus with deep lateral foveae ; frons impressed above the 

 scrobes ; facial, frontal, exterior and dots at the vertical orbits stramineous ; 

 $ with mouth and face entirely white. Antennae white-banded in both 

 sexes, with scape rufescent beneath. Thorax black, with pronotum, a line 

 before, and in $ beneath, the radix, stramineous, and sometimes with two 

 rufescent patches on the metanotum ; areola usually longer than broad ; 

 costulae weak ; apophyses small. Scutellum and post-scutellum with 

 two stramineous dots; $ usually has the former entirely pale. Abdomen 

 very slender, black ; apical margin of second, and sometimes of the first 

 segment also, red ; petiole long and slender ; post-petiole convex and 

 shagreened, with no carinae ; second segment strongly narrowed basally, 

 with gastrocaeli sub-obsolete and thyridii long, oblique and some distance 

 from the base ; third and fourth segments quadrate ; $ with hypopygium 

 apically white and reaching apex of anus ; terebra not exserted. Legs red ; 

 apices of hind tibiae, and sometimes all the coxae and trochanters, black ; 

 hind tarsi black, usually with central joints white ; $ with the coxae and 

 trochanters, as well as the sides of the front tibiae and tarsi, white. Wings 

 with stigma piceous and areolet strongly narrowed, sub-coalesced above. 

 Length, 10-12 mm. 



The white-banded tarsi and antennae, wliich latter are also a little 

 centrally incrassate, together with the slender abdomen, linear petiole, 

 and the produced valvulae of the $ , will at once distinguish this species, 

 which is somewhat variable in colour. 



It is found uncommonly in central and northern Europe, and has been 

 bred in Germany from Acidalia irUineafa, Melanippe luctuata and Anticka 

 berberata. I do not anticipate that it is uncommon in Britain when 

 properly sought ; Cameron has taken it, at Cadder, near Glasgow, and 

 Bignell, early in July, at Bickleigh, in Devon. Here, too, it seems to 

 confine its parasitism to the smaller Geometers having been bred by 

 W. H. B. Fletcher, of Worthing, from Ephyra pimctaria ; and Mr. A. M. 

 Montgomery has given me a live female, together with the chrysalis of 

 Ephyra irilinearia ( Zonosoma linearia) from which it emerged, on April 

 28th, 1901 ; the host in this case had been collected in woods, near Chal- 

 pont Road, Bucks. The parasite emerges directly through a somewhat 

 regular orifice, made by entirely removing the extremity of the pupa, in 

 which is no distinct cocoon nor silken lining whatever. Schmiedeknecht 

 takes it annually in damp, shady places among alder bushes ; there are 

 several from the New Forest in coll. Bridg. ; and Mr. E. R. Bankes has 

 bred it from a doubtful geometer (possibly Melanippe galiata) at Dart- 

 mouth, in August and the end of May. 



CTENICHNEUMON, Thomson. 



Thorns. O. E. xix. (1S94), 2083. 



Head with the vertex broad, not or hardly narrowed posteriorly, black ; 

 facial orbits rarely white ; mandibles bidentate. Antennal fiagellum 



p 



