10 BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. [ Sphinctus 

TRIBE 
SPHINCTIDES. 
Face deplanate ; antennae stout and subfiliform. Metathorax short, 
subvertical, with the areola obsolete or strongly transverse and petiolar 
area very large; spiracles minute and circular. Scutellum large, 
deplanate, strongly margined and sometimes hardly discreted from 
mesonotum. Abdomen dull and strongly punctate, elongately petiolate 
with prominent spiracles in centre of basal segment; second segment not 
discally carinate. Legs slender; hind tibiae unicalcarate, the inter- 
mediate bicalcarate. Areolet sessile, triangular and not large, its inner 
nervure oblique and the outer subcontinuous with the straight recurrent 
nervure; submedian longer than the median cell; nervellus subopposite 
and intercepted but very slightly below its centre. 
This tribe is abundantly distinct in the peculiar conformation of its 
areolet, the strongly petiolate pyriform abdomen, margined scutellum, 
subvertical metathorax and tibial calcaria. It is known to prey upon sub- 
apodous Lepidopterous larvae. But one genus containing a single species 
has been described from the palearctic region, though a second was 
brought forward, in ignorance of its true position, by Cameron in 1899. 
SPHINCTUS, Gravenhorst. 
Grav. I. E. ii. (1829), 363; Eradha, Cam. Manch. Mem. 1899, p. 213. 
The characters are those of the tribe and the peculiar facies extremely 
distinct. 
1. serotinus, Grav. 
Sphinctus serotinus, Gr. I. E. ii. 365; Hartig, Arch. f. Naturg. 1837, p. 155, 
pl. iv, figg. 5 et 7: Blanch. Hist. Ins. iii. 310; Ratz. Ichn. d. Forst. ii. 119: iii. 
; 131; Brisch. Schr. Nat. Ges. Danz. 1878, Pillar one’. 
A black and flavous species, closely punctate with griseous pilosity. 
Head short and strongly transverse, with the facial orbits broadly and the 
external narrowly flavous. Antennae entirely black, or more or less 
broadly ferrugineous basally especially beneath, strongly incrassate and 
basally attenuate. Thorax subglobose ; subhamate marks on either side 
of mesonotum, propleurae above and dots on both meso- and meta- 
pleurae, flavous. Scutellum large, subquadrate and deplanate, with two 
often coalescent apical flavous dots. Abdomen stout and pyriform, with 
basal segment scabrous and sublinear; second and third except basally 
with two discal dots, first and fourth and fifth at their apices, flavous ; 
remainder black ; terebra very short. Legs slender and not elongate, 
black with the tibiae, apices of all the femora and the hind coxae above, 
flavous. Wings narrow, subhyaline with the anterior margin infumate 
beyond the narrow and fulvous stigma. Length, 1o—14 mm. 
This species is termed serofinus because Klug first took it flying in the 
autumn, near Berlin; subsequently it was found in Germany among hazel 
bushes in September ; Italy (Grav.) ; Austria (Kirchner); Brischke found 
the female in Prussia as late as 6th October; and it has been added to 
the French fauna (Gaulle, 1908) since the publication of Dours’ Cat. in 
1874. Giraud tells us (Fr. Soc. 1877) that he bred it from Heferogena 
lestudinana in Hungary ; and Ratzeburg had already recorded it from the 
