BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 29I 



Ardpeaton (Evans) ; Whitby and Chobham (Beaumont) ; Kingsdown, 

 Dover and St. Margaret's Bay, in Kent (Sladen) ; Tostock (Tuck) ; South 

 Leverton and Torksey, in Lines. (Thornley) ; Felden (Piffard) ; Baldock 

 (Donisthorpe) ; New Forest (Miss Chawner, etc.) ; Worksop (Miss Alder- 

 son) ; Woking (E.Saunders); Cadder, in Lanark (Dalglish); Bottisham 

 and Thornley in May and September, 1843 (Cambs. List). I have 

 never seen this species in July, and little doubt can remain that it 

 hibernates in the perfect state, since it is commonest in September, on the 

 flowers of Angelica sylvestris and of both wild and cultivated Daucus 

 carofa, after which it may still be taken freely in early October ; it is un- 

 common in the early summer upon flowers of Chaerophyllum and Herac- 

 ieiun ; it flies slowly, low down, just above the roadside grasses, etc. I 

 have found it at the following localities in Suffolk : — Farnham, Westleton, 

 Benacre Park, Dodnash Woods, Tuddenham Fen, Wortham, Eye, Claydon 

 Bridge, Foxhall, Henstead and Barnby Broad. The melanic form of the 

 male appears to be influenced more by the humidity of the situation than 

 bleakness of climate, thus the majority of the examples from Barnby 

 Broad are referable to the van ?iigra, while those from Cadder, Bonhill 

 and Heriot have the abdomen at least partly pale ; Mr. E. A. Elliott has, 

 however, taken the black form in the very heart of London. It is a most 

 remarkable fact that this abundant species has never been bred, and we 

 have no knowledge of its hosts,^ which one is led consequently to believe 

 must be other than lepidopterous. The discovery of coleopterous or 

 hymenopterous hosts would be a great excuse for excluding this insect, 

 which is common throughout Europe, from the Ichneiimoninae. 



Obs. — Microleptes splendidulus, Gr. (L E. i. 679; Ste. 111. ]\I. vii. 211, pi. 

 xl. f. 3 ; Voll. Schets. I. pi. i. f. 6, ? ), for the reception of which 

 Marshall, in his 1872 catalogue, raised the section Microlepti, 

 ranking along with Wesmael's Heierogastri, etc., of the Ichneu- 

 inoninae, is not placed by Ashmead, and by Berthoumieu is 

 considered to appertain to the Tryphoninae. 



1 There is one slight, though I fear unreliable, clue to the economy of this species, which appears 

 to have hitherto been overlooked. Rev. William Kirby, f.r.s., tells us (Introd. to Ent. ed. vii. 154) 

 that a species of ichneumon, allied to A. debellatoy, " wliich I have named A. steicorator" (? MS.), 

 oviposits in stercorareous larvae; and Stephens says that the Alnmya Ucrcorator of his Catalogue, 

 No. 4456, is nothing but a variety of A. ovator. Fab. I think, however, the insect here referred to 

 more likely to be one resembling Exolytiis laevi^atns, Grav., which I myself have found ovipositing 

 in dipterous larvae in a dead cow's head. Mr. C. \V. Dale thought (E.M.M. 1903, p. 100) it was a 

 well-known fact that this species was parasitic on the larvae of Geotnipes, and adds that he has taken 

 the var. itit^ra, the ? of which I have never seen and is not described, ovipositing in slcrcoie v.iccino; 

 Geotrupes larvae, however, do not feed in the dung, but several inches below the surface of the ground 

 underneath it, and I am not aware that the spicula of even the ? iiit^ra is telescopic ! 



