Ophion] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 273 



the apical entirely wanting and ])etiolar area not centrally bicarinate ; 

 apophyses not strong. Scutellum usually obsoletely carinate laterally. 

 Legs slender and elongate, with tarsi especially long. Stigma somewhat 

 pale testaceous, with both extremities distinctly whitish; lower basal 

 nervure continuous, of $ sometimes subpostfurcal, of 9 often antefurcal ; 

 nervellus intercepted a little below its centre. Length, 14-18 mm. ^ 9- 



Jioth sexes are readily known by the small and posteriorly narrow head, 

 the basally and apically white stigma which they share with no other 

 species, and by the unifuscate mesonotum; the $ is remarkable for the 

 extraordinary length of its antennae of seventy joints, a number eijualled 

 throughout the Ichneumonidae only by the $ of Henicospiliis ramidiilus. 



Dr. Brauns appears uncertain respecting the sex of his Mecklenburg 

 type and Schm. assigns none to the numerous Thuringian specimens he 

 considers to belong to this species. It has not hitherto been recorded 

 from Britain, but there can remain no doubt that three males in my col- 

 lection are correctly here placed. Llsam took one "under a stone in 

 fields above the railway at St. Leonards, with its head just visible at the 

 entrance to a hole, in ^larch, 1899"; H. Crowther sent the second from 

 Westwood near Sheffield, November, 1877; and the third is from Clark's 

 London collection. The females are arbitrarily associated ; one came 

 to light at Withycombe Hill in .Somerset on 29lh September, 1908, and 

 was taken by Slater; Buckell sent the second from Romsey in Hants; 

 and the last was bred at Monks Soham on 4th June, 1909, from some 

 Noctuid pupa at roots of garden lawn. Lyie, who has thrice bred this 

 species from larvae oi Agroiis porphyrca in the New Forest, tells me "the 

 parasitic larva emerges from host in April or rarely May. The imago of 

 the Ophion sometimes remains through the winter in its cocoon and when 

 it emerges in the autumn hibernates as such, since in March, 1904, I 

 found one crawling on heather ; this may have been a very early emerg- 

 ency, however." 



10. scutellaris, T/ionis. 

 Ophion scutellaris. Thorns. O.E. xii. 1192; Brauns, Arch. Nat. Meckl. 18S9, p. 92. 



A testaceous species, with the orbits and sometimes scutellum flavous ; 

 head not broad; ocelli contiguous with eyes. Antennae of normal length. 

 Melanotum with two more or less strongly developed transcarinae; peti- 

 olar area centrally bicarinate. Scutellum (in form typ.) laterally carinate 

 nearly to its apex. Abdomen with second and third segments stronglv 

 constricted basally. Stigma unicolorous ck'ar testaceous; ba.sal nervure 

 antefurcal or (in torm tyj).) c:ontinuous through median ; nervellus cen- 

 trally intercepted. Length, 14-19 nnn. J *? • 



Thomson says it is of the size and conformation of (K liiUux, but with 

 the capital vertex shorter and more strongly narrowed, the intt'rmediate 

 calcaria only a little inequal in length, the basal nervure continuous, 

 petiole longer and scutellum acutely margined. The ba.sal constriction 

 of the second and third segments in my examples is stronger than in any 

 allied kinds. It is, Iiowever, an extremely variable species and, in its 

 more untypical forms, 1 am able to distinguish it from O. luteus solely by 

 the extremely obtuse, apically almost truncate, mandibular teeth. 



A very common species, of which I possess some fortv examples from 

 lime in Bushey Park early in June (Sich), Bewdley (\V. KIlis), Laxey in 

 the Isle of Man (Dr. Cassel) ; and lirandon in Suffolk (Elliott), where it 



