8 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [ Metopius 

The only known British specimen was captured recently in Devonshire 
and has been most kindly presented to me by Mr. T. H. Edmonds. It is 
somewhat abnormal in its great size of 16 mm., in having the epistoma 
immaculate and the basal segment broadly pale. 
4. dissectorius, Panz. 
Ichneumon dissectorius, Panz. F. G. xcviii. 14. Metopius dissectorius, Panz. 
Krit. Revis. ii. 80; Wesm. Bul. Ac. Brux. 1849, p. 622; Holmgr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 
18&5, p. 372; Voll. Pinac. pl. xvi, fig. 2; Thoms. Deut. Ent. Zeit. 1887, p. 194, 
¢¢. M. sicarius, Gr. I. E. iii. 291, 9. Peltastes dissectorius, Curt. B. E. 
1824. fol. 4; Lep. Enc. Méth. Ins. x. 37, ¢. Var. P. nigrator, Lep. Encycl. 
Meth l8255-, 37, 9. 
Head sometimes with the internal orbits, or a juxta-anteunal dot and a 
line below the antennae, narrowly flavous ; mandibles apically acute and 
not emarginate; palpi favous. Antennae somewhat stout, either entirely 
ferrugineous or black with the scape flavous-dotted beneath. ‘Thorax 
sometimes with an obsolete flavous callosity beneath the radices. Post- 
scutellum very rarely flavous centrally. Abdomen caerulescent or pur- 
purascent black, especially towards its apex, sometimes with a longitudinal 
discal carina; three basal segments either flavous-margined with the 
colour centrally interrupted, or as also is very rarely the fifth, with only a 
small flavous dot in their apical angles; fourth entirely flavous-margined. 
Legs rarely totally black, but of variable colour; either infuscate cas- 
taneous with the coxae darker; or infuscate with the front ones fer- 
rugineous beneath, the hind coxae black and sometimes all the tibiae 
entirely ferrugineous; or black with the anterior femora and _ tibiae 
laterally dark testaceous beneath; or black with the apices of the front 
femora and tibiae and base of the latter subtestaceous. Hind femora 
stout and subfusiform, sometimes castaneous or flavous-marked above. 
Wings distinctly and determinately infumate in the radial and external 
cubital cells; stigma fulvous or piceous; radix and tegulae infuscate or 
black. Length, ro—1z2 mm. 
Wesmael says the @ not infrequently has the margin of the fourth 
segment centrally black. 
It may be known by the colour of the abdomen and the infumescence 
of the wings, says Holmgren; and Thomson shows that the latter char- 
acter distinguishes it from all other species known to him, but JZ. fuscz- 
pennis, Wesm., which has the second to fifth segmental margins entirely 
pale and the head acutely spinate behind the antennae. _Lepeletier’s P. 
nigrator appears to differ in little but its entirely black antennae and 
palpi; it was found about Paris and is not known as British. 
This species appears to be but little rarer than the last in northern and 
central Europe, though Holmgren tells us he found it to be very rare in 
Sweden in the middle of August. It is said by Vollenhoven to be para- 
sitic on the caterpillar of Symra venosa; and Gaulle gives Amphydasts 
betularia, Biston, E-ennomos, Gonodontis, Hygrochroa, and Opisthograptis as 
its hosts. With us, however, I can find but two records; Curtis says he 
took a specimen at the end of September, 1822, in North Devon with the 
four basal segments pale-margined throughout, and received a second, 
without any locality, of the typical form; and in the Victoria History, 
Harwood vaguely records it from Essex. I myself have seen no indi- 
genous examples, though the two specimens in the National Collection 
from Stephens’, and one from Desvignes’, collections purport to be such. 
