66 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [Charops 



terebra short. Legs with tibiae finely spinulose and claws pectinate. 

 Wings with no trace of areolet and the nervelkis curved. 



The only Campoplegid genus with elongate metathoracic spiracles and 

 no areolet. Only one palaearctic species is known but there are a great 

 many in warmer parts of the world and 1 have described new ones from 

 India. I consider Szepligeti has no justification for placing this species 

 (Gen. Insect.) in the Anomalidcs ; the lack of areolet is its only feature in 

 common therewith, since its whole facies is like that of Compoplex, and 

 Holmgren compares it to C. pugillalor, difiering mainly in its scutcllar 

 and venational structure. 



1. decipiens, Grav. 



Caiupoplcx dccipiciis, Gr. I.E. iii. 596, ? . Charops decipiens, Holmgr. Ofv. 

 1858, p. 324 ; Sv. Ak. Handl. 1858, no. 8, p. 39, ^ ? . C. dcficiens, Thorns. O.E. 

 xi. 1090, <? ? . 



A black and grey-pubescent species, Avith the abdomen centrally and 

 anterior legs red. Head transverse and somewhat constricted posteriorly ; 

 occiput hardly emarginate ; frons deplanate and rugulose ; face slightly 

 convex and pubescent ; clypeus apically broadly rounded ; mandibles 

 somewhat broad and usually piceous, with the teeth of subequal length. 

 Antennae apically gradually a little attenuate, of J hardly longer than 

 half body, of $ shorter; basal flagellar joint a little longer than second. 

 Thorax stout, and strongly punctate or rugulose and dull ; notauli sub- 

 obsolete; metathorax declived throughout, with petiolar area not strongly 

 concave and the upper areae incomplete. Scutellum deplanate, sub- 

 quadrate, with sulciform basal fovea. Abdomen with basal segment hardly 

 shorter than hind coxae and trochanters, the red postpetiole convex and 

 not laterally parallel; third, fourth and sides of the second segments red; 

 terebra straight and shortly exserted. Legs black with the anterior, 

 except basally, red ; intermediate femora sometimes mainlv black ; hind 

 knees pale. Wings slightly infumate with the stigma infuscate, radix 

 stramineous and areolet wanting. Length, 1 0-12 mm. 



It is said to be spread throughout Europe by Thomson, though it occurs 

 but singly and almost invariably on dry and sunny places, especially lime- 

 stone, in late summer according to Schm., while Holmgren, on the con- 

 trary, found it in central and southern Sweden in paludibus graminosis ; 

 Gravenhorst knew but one from Berlin, Gaulle mentions it from France, 

 and Tosquinet took a single Belgian example in July. Giraud has re- 

 corded it (Ann. Soc. Fr. 1877, p. 404.) from Zygacna filipefidulae and Botys 

 silacealis. Bridg. -Fitch, thought (Entom. 1885, p. 100) it a rare species ; 

 and the former repeats the statement (E.M.M. 1889, p. 185), in publish- 

 ing its first indigenous rearing, which was from Zvgatiia trifulii by 

 Fletcher, probably at Worthing in Sussex; he adds that "it makes a 

 blackish-brown cocoon inside the well-known straw-coloured outer 

 covering of Zjgaefia cocoons, and is closely adherent to its inner 

 surface." Elliott has presented me with a single female, which is said 

 to have been taken in the London district and, with considerable doubt, 

 to have been bred from Co/ias cdusa ; in this example the second segment 

 is constricted before its base on either side and the oblique nervellus is 

 not intercepted, which features are shared by two males bred by Prof. 

 Selwyn Image on 26th July, 1908, from cocoons of Z. filipendulae upon 

 which they had been solitarily parasitic at Folkestone. 1 possess half- 

 a-dozen other examples from J. A. Clark's London collection. 



