Polyclistus | BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. a, 

zoth September, and on 21st October, 1906, captured one sitting upon 
and sucking the juice of an ivy blossom in the garden. I have suspected 
it of preying upon Anobcum domesticum or house Tineae, but the present 
species never occurred to me in Ipswich, where these insects are common 
enough ; and I now consider it more probable that it flies across from 
P. farinalis in the adjacent farm, or my own stables. 
3. flaviceps, Ratz. 
Exochus flaviceps, Ratz. Ichn. d. Forst. iii. 182; Holmgr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 1855, 
p. 309; Voll. Pinac. pl. viii, fig. 5, ¢. Metacoelus flaviceps, Holmgr. Ofv. 1873, 
p. 62, ¢. Polyclistus facialis, Thoms. Deut. Ent. Zeit. 1887, p. 218, ¢ ¢. 
A shining black species with the mouth, scape beneath, radix and 
tegulae flavous; the legs flavescent-fulvous and in ¢ the face, cheeks, 
pleural marks, anterior coxae and trochanters concolorous. Length, 
3—6 mm. 
Very like the last species but both sexes are at once known by the 
testaceous stigma, the gently rounded metathorax which is not sub- 
quadrately prominent at the apophyses, and the apically straight radius 
which is neither deflexed nor reflexed, rendering the radial cell but 
moderately acute apically; the @ differs from the last species in its 
elongate postannellus, the ¢ iu its flavous face and both sexes in their 
parallel-sided areola which extends to the extreme base with no indication 
of basal area. My females are 22—34 mm. and the males 5 mm. Thom- 
son states the hind tibiae to be basally black, which feature I am unable 
to follow. 
This species has not hitherto been noticed in britain, and the female is 
much mixed with the preceding ; I possess, however, both sexes of which 
he had recognised the male, in Dr. Capron’s Surrey collection; and on 
16th April, 1898, I took several yellow Zortricid pupae in their own 
cocoons beneath moss on oak trunks in a fir wood at Foxhall in Suffolk, 
from which emerged no lepidopteron but a single specimen of the dip- 
teron, Lonchaea tarsata, Fln., and a single male of the present species. 
The latter had entirely removed the capital extremity of the chrysalis in a 
very irregular manner. The female occurs with the last species at Monks 
Soham in August. Ratzeburg described the male from material bred by 
Nordlingerin Germany from cherry wood infested by the Tipulid, C/enophora 
atrata and a species of Sphex ; subsequently Holmgren took the same 
sex rarely in central and southern Sweden, whence Thomson described 
the female.* 
* Mr. Luff sent me from Guernsey in April, 1900, a female, which I at that time considered to 
belong to the present species; this I now know to be impossible and give the following diagnosis, 
which I then drew up, in order to elucidate the matter. It is certainly referable to Metacoelus, as 
understood by Holmgren in 1873, with the abdomen black and its upper margins only occasionally 
rufescent; the legs are for the most part flavous and not red, all of which points coincide with 
P, flaviceps, Ratz. 
It differs from my detailed description of P. mansuetor, as follows :—Forehead not depressed 
centrally before its apex ; whole of cheeks, face, and mouth parts flavous, thickly and rather rugosely 
punctured throughout, apices of mandibles ferrugineous ; clypeus without larger punctures; flagellum 
not much thickened, ferrugineous throughout below, apices of joints narrowly black; scape flavous 
and conical, following joints cylindrical, slightly nodose at their apices; propleurae black, but the 
prosternum narrowly davads immediately before the front coxae; areola elongate, hexagonal-rectan- 
gular; abdomen distinctly punctured throughout and apically pubescent; terebral valvulae black, 
not shorter than terebra, slightly deflexed and exserted, projecting from level with base of seventh 
dorsal segment and extending slightly beyond apex of abdomen; a well-defined central fold on three 
basalsegments. Legs incrassate, entirely fulvescent, anterior or front ones lighter with coxae and 
trochanters stramineous; hind coxae rulous, punctured, with base slightly fuscous; tibiae externally 
and tarsi beneath nude. Wings with tegulae flavous. Length, 54 mm, 
