124 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [Canidiella 



CANIDIELLA, Ashmead. 



Ashm. Canad. Entom. 1900, p. 368; Canidia, Holmgr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 1858, 

 p. 103 {nee Thorns. 1857). 



Body small and stout. Head slightly buccate; cheeks subbuccate, 

 elongate and longer than base of mandibles, with their costa subcontin- 

 uous ; mandibles somewhat long and stout, with acute teeth ; clypeus 

 basally hardly discreted and apically rounded, with deeply impressed 

 lateral foveae ; eyes small and subentire, peristomium broad and face 

 parallel-sided. Antennae stout; scape black, flagellum subfiliform and 

 not elongate, with only about twenty joints. Thorax gibbulous, short 

 and hardly longer than high ; metathorax not apically produced, with its 

 discal areae distinct but costulae wanting; petiolar area elongate and 

 not excavate. Abdomen normally broad and in our species not red ; 

 petiole deplanate and double the length of the discreted postpetiole with 

 neither lateral sulci nor scrobes ; second segment subtransverse and 

 black, with its incisure red, very rarely pale-margined ; terebra reflexed 

 and exserted, of variable length. Legs normal and mainly black, with 

 calcaria not elongate. Wings with areolet nearly always pentagonal and 

 sessile ; basal and recurrent nervures vertical, the cubital divergent ; 

 brachial cell short ; stigma stramineous and somewhat broad ; tegulae 

 usually black ; nervellus antefurcal, oblique and subgeniculate. 



Schmiedeknecht retains Holmgren's name (Opusc. Ichn. 1673) for 

 this genus, having mistaken its preoccupation by Thomson in 1857 

 among Coleoptera for the latter's description of 1887 (O.K. 1 1 1 1). 



This genus is best recognised by the always broad, regular and often 

 sessile and pentagonal areolet, the broad abdomen with its often hardly 

 exserted terebra, elongate petiole and short, strongly discreted post- 

 petiole, all of which points render it much the facies of the anomalous 

 Cryptid genera Stilpyius and Phrudus; this is a similarity worthy of 

 further investigation for natural affinity. 



Whether the hosts of the present genus be Lepidopterous as Bignell 

 indicates, or Coleopterous as stated by Brischke, who has paid most 

 attention to the genus, and Ratzeburg is uncertain. The last bred, 

 besides the species indicated below, C. qiiinque-angularis, Ratz., out of 

 larvae oi Hypera-arundinis (cf. Trans. Ent. Soc. 191 1, p. 479). That they 

 be either, is still open to doubt ; and Kreichbaumer's description of 

 Nemeritis raphidiae (Entom. Nachr. 1892, p. 234), bred from larvae of the 

 neuropterous genus Raphidia, lends interest to the fact that specimens 

 of that genus emerged along with Canidiella pusilla and its supposititious 

 Malacoderm host ; cf. also Ratzeburg's forgotten Campoplex incidens, 

 which was reared from Raphidia ophiopsis (Ichn. d. Forst. i. 94 et scqg.). 



Tabic of Species. 



(6). 1. Areolet pentagonal and broadly 



sessile. 

 (5). 2. Stout with second segment not 



elongate ; terebra short. 

 (4). 3. Hind tibiae black below ; terebra 



shorter than first segment .. i. tristls, Grav. 

 (3). 4. Hind tibiae not centrally black; 



terebra length of first segment .. 2. SUBCINCTA, Grav. 



