Cremaslus] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS 55 



CREMASTIDES. 



CREMASTUS, Gravcnhnrst. 

 Gr. I.K. iii. IS'29, 730. 



Head with the vertex narrow and its orbits usually pale-marked, with 

 somewhat large ocelli ; genal costa straight; mandibles ai)ically a little 

 constricted with the teeth subequal, basally not reaching the oblong eyes, 

 which are internally subparallel ; clypeus apically more or less rounded 

 and basally always discreted ; palpi short, the maxillary with the three 

 apical joints of decreasing length. Antennal scrobes ovate-globose, a 

 little excised; flagellum nearly always very slender. Thorax cylindrical, 

 with pronotal epomiae distinct ; notauli obsolete or very rarely apically 

 deep ; mesosternum not transverse, its central sulcus fine and sternauli 

 obsolete or wanting ; metathoracic areae neatly determined, with the 

 areolar elongate and emitting costulae before its centre, sometimes apic- 

 ally incomplete; costellae entire, spiracles small and circular; and the 

 apex somewhat produced beyond the coxal insertion. Scutellum a little 

 convex, unusually margined to its apex on either side. Abdomen strongly 

 compressed ; basal segment with spiracles far beyond its centre, the 

 postpetiole not laterally acute with epipleurae of the discally aciculate 

 second segment inflexed ; the sixth and seventh apically emarginate or 

 excised ; terebra slender, with spicula apically deflexed. I^egs slender, 

 with the mutic hind femora short; posterior tibiae with unequal calcaria; 

 onychii narrow, with claws slender and short. Wings with the stigma 

 large, broad and conspicuous ; areolet always wanting, with the submar- 

 ginal nervure strongly elongate and often as long as the basal abscissa of 

 the radius; the vertical upper basal nervure rarely postfurcal ; lower angle 

 of discoidal cell right or obtuse; lower wings with cubital ner\ure basally 

 obsolete. 



All interesting genus of broad distribution, from which Tdiy/ni, Cam., 

 of evt'u wider range, is perhaps hardly distinct. Our species have become 

 considiM-ably involved, considering the little work thai has liillierto been 

 done upon them ; I'homson has constituted this genus ihe subji-cl tor 

 one of his admirable monograjjlis in Opusc. Ent. and sums up what 

 others, but especially himself, have done in his "Cremaslus och niirs- 

 taendc" genera" of i8qo. Szepligeti and Schmiedeknecht seem to have 

 advanced the subject but little since that time, though a good many new 

 species have been jjublislied "and we have almost certainly now more 

 than exist in Nature," as the latter remarks of the palaearctic region. 

 The British list, however, is by no means crowded in this respect, though 

 all my own specimens fall into those species already reported hence and 

 I have at present no reason tt) sujjpose there are others. An undeter- 

 mined one is reported (Mntom. i(SSo, p. ()S) to haxc been bred Irom 

 CoUopliora solitariella by Champion. 



Three or four other palaearctic genera have been recognised in this 

 Tribe, of which only the typical one has hitherto occurred, or is at all 

 likeh lo occur, in liritain. 



