256 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. • [Ag/jpon 



(Esam), Guestling (Kloomlicld), common at Shere (Capron), Greenings 

 (W. Saunders), Felden as early as gth May (Piflfard), Tarrington in Here- 

 ford (Verbury), Painswick in Glos. (Watkins), Sherwood (W. Ellis), and 

 Cannock Chase (Tomlin). In Norfolk, Eridgman says Atmore found it 

 at Kings Lynn, but he does not appear to have taken it himself; it is, how- 

 ever, not rare, since Elliott and I swept several from reeds and rank herb- 

 age in the Broads at Surlingham, Hickling and Wroxham in June, 1901. 

 It is one of the commonest of all Ichneumonidae, as regards the 

 number of individuals, in all our Suffolk woods, more especially at Assing- 

 ton Thicks, Brandon, Bentley Woods, Orwell Park and Staverton. I have 

 annually noticed these insects to be extremely abundant, flying and 

 hovering round <;?// the oak bushes, doubtless also the higher trees, 

 searching for larvae ; and, though I have never witnessed oviposition, I 

 have seen them make feints at attacking young caterpillars that I believe 

 to be those of Cheimatobia bi'umata, invariably equally abundant at the 

 time that the parasites fly, always slowly with elevated abdomen and 

 pendent legs, like a duck. They are about only from i6th IMay to 21st 

 June in my experience — which renders one chary of August records. 

 Tuck has found it at I'ostock and Bungay, Chitty at Foxhall and Beau- 

 mont at Bentley in Suffolk, where in meadows it has occurred to me at 

 Lavenham, Wherstead, INIutford, Reydon marshes, Tuddenham Fen and 

 once flying round a rose bush here at Monks Soham, where my suspicions 

 of its extremely beneficial parasitism were strengthened by seeing on 3rd 

 June, 1908, a female poking its antennae and head between two elm 

 leaves concealing a larva, certainly of C. hrumata, which it closely inves- 

 tigated. And they were confirmed by Lyle, who actually reared this 

 species from C. brumata at Brockenhurst in March, 191 1; the same 

 excellent observer has noted that it is strongly attracted by the flowers of 

 Wood Spurge in the middle of May and has bred it in the Forest also 

 from pupae of Cerostoma radiatella. Slater sent me a female bred at 

 With)'combe in Somerset, with some little doubt, from C. hnunata on 

 23rd Feb., 1908 ; Bankes raised it at the end of May, 1905, from a pupa 

 of Eupithecia Irisignaria, HS., at York ; and Barrett has given it me from 

 both E. valerianata and Tortrix sp. It had previously been noted in 

 Britain to attack E.piunilata and Hypsipetes impiuviata by Raynor (Entom. 

 1884, p. 67), Thcda bctulae by Bignell and Notodonia dromedarius by 

 Marshall [J.c. 226), Taeniocampa miniosa on 14th March in south Devon 

 (Bignell), BryophU'a perla by W. Fletcher and Brephos notha (Bridgman). 

 Unlike any other Ichneumonid of my acquaintance, this is most ferocious 

 and, when placed in a tube, will bite and mangle any other insects con- 

 tained with it ; in a small tube it will live six or seven days. 



9. septentrionale, Hohugr. 



Anotiialon septentrionale, Holmgr. Ofv. 1857, p. 179 ; Sv. Ak. Handl. 1858, 

 p. 27 ; Bridg. -Fitch, Entom. 1884, p. 224, 3 ? . A. flaveolatum, var., Brisch. Schr. 

 Nat. Ges. Danz. 1882, p. 137. Ai>iypon JIaveolatus, var., Thorns. O.E. 1771. 



Head hardly broadened behind and black with the mouth, clypeus, 

 orbits, genal apices, face and vertical marks on either side, flavous. 

 Antennae shorter than body, with scape flavous beneath. Thorax black, 

 with radical callosities rufescent and the mesothorax somewhat strongly 

 punctate. Abdomen with two basal segments red with the second dis- 



