PREFACE. vil 

evil has beeome gradually obviated from time to time as competent 
students have overhauled the Breslau types, the very indefiniteness of 
both family and generic characters as we still understand them continues, 
and will continue, to make redescription unavoidable till interchange of 
subtypes has become more general than now obtains. This very difficulty 
has been seized upon by some writers as an excuse for pretending to 
consider the fauna of a given region or country self-contained, as did 
Cameron in respect to India, every specimen from which not ¢hence already 
brought forward was published as a new species to Science! ‘The 
extensive distribution of these parasites, our experience of which is 
gradually becoming larger and showing it to be extremely wide, greatly 
facilitates the publication of the same species under different names in 
distant countries and other continents. Thus, common Gravenhorstian 
species were reproduced as new in the Journal of the Bombay Nat. Hist. 
Soc. as recently as 1909 (p. 722) and 1902 (p. 428); while I have caught 
Japanese, Canadian and Indian species in Suffolk. Let us, then, first 
learn what is known to others before we contribute to heap yet higher 
the mass of new-old species which threatens ere long to revert Ichneu- 
monology to the unwieldy chaos whence it has emerged so slowly and 
with so much patient labour. 
In the present volume I have received less assistance than was the case 
in the preceding, not through any lack of that very hearty co-operation 
and generosity so universal among entomologists, but on account of the 
small proportion of the insects dealt with that prey upon Lepidoptera, to 
which the fifth and final volume is almost entirely devoted. I here thank 
as sincerely as ever Miss E. M. Alderson, F.C. Adams, E. A. Atmore, 
E. R. Bankes, E. C. Bedwell, Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, A. C. Bowdler, 
R. C. Bradley, B.A. Bower, E. Brunetti, E. Buckell, E. A. Butler, 
M. van Burgst, Rosse Butterfield, Prof. J. W. Carr, Dr. R. T. Cassal, 
G. C. Champion, Dr. Chapman, H. J. Charbonnier, Miss E. Chawner, 
A. A. Dalglish, Horace Donisthorpe, Hartley Durrant, T. H. Edmonds, 
Stanley Edwards, Ernest A. Elliott, W.W.Esam, W. Evans, P. de la 
Garde, J.de Gaulle, Rev. H.S. Gorham, J. N. Halbert, M. Houghton, 
A.H. Hamm, Rev. W. F. Johnson, G. T. Lyle, J. R. Malloch, A. H. 
Martineau, G. W. Mason, Rev. F. D. Morice, C. H. Mortimer, E. A. 
Newbery, Lieut-Col. C. G. Nurse, Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge, N. M. 
Richardson, W. D. Roebuck, A. Roman, Hon. N. C. Rothschild, G. B. 
Routledge, W. A. Schulz, F. W. Sladen, R. South, Rev. A. Thornley, 
J.R.le B. Tomlin, W. H. Tuck, C.J. Wainwright, J. Waterston, Col. 
J. W. Yerbury. 
The National Collection of British Ichneumonidae has been rearranged 
uniformly with the present work. 
CLAUDE MORLEY. 
Monks’ Sonam House, SUFFOLK, 
May rst, rgrt. 
