Bassus | BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 87 

my paddock at Monks’ Soham; as well as at Kirtling, in Cambridge- 
shire. It is very widely distributed on the Continent, and I have seen it 
from as far east as India. 
6. annulatus, Grav. 
Bassus albosignatus, var. 2, Gr. I. E. iii. 344, ¢ 2 (?). B. annulatus, Gr. 
lib. cit. 348, 2; Thoms. O. E. xiv. 1468; Morl. Trans. Ent. Soc. 1905, 
p- 425, ¢ @. 
A black species with the mouth, clypeus, facial orbits, g but not ? 
epistoma, marks before the concolorous tegulae, more or less of scu- 
tellum, and the hind tibial band, white. Legs red with the anterior coxae 
basally and hind ones entirely, hind tarsi and remainder of their tibiae 
except at apex, black. Abdomen rarely obsoletely red-marked. Length, 
4—5 mm. 
This species is so closely allied to the last-described that I am not per- 
suaded that it is distinct ; it may be known, however, by the partly black 
anterior coxae and entirely black hind coxae, the apically rufescent hind 
tibiae and generally more slender conformation. 
It is not very common with us and has been much mixed with the pre- 
ceding ; and on the Continent has only been recognised in Scandinavia 
and Frankfort. I have seen specimens captured by Prof. Carr about 
Nottingham in July, by Marshall at Botusfleming in Cornwall, by Capron 
about Shere in Surrey, and by Tuck at Bungay on 14th July, and Fin- 
borough Park in Suffolk on 24th September, which dates appear to 
represent this species’ duration in the perfect state in Britain. I have 
only met with it from 22nd to 26th August, 1899, when I took five 
specimens on the flowers of Amgelica sylvestris ina marshy spot by the 
river Gipping at Claydon bridge in Suffolk. 
HOMOCIDUS, 1.n. 
Face finely and densely alutaceo-punctate, dull and neither smooth nor 
longitudinally impressed ; cheeks somewhat short; mandibles usually de- 
planate discally and a little constricted apically. Antennal scape neither 
short nor deeply excised; flagellum sometimes apically subattenuate. 
Thorax with pleurae not glabrous; notauli obsolete or wanting; meta- 
thorax with spiracles small and at some distance from the pleural margin, 
areae usually not always obsolete. Abdomen usually black, of ? rarely 
strongly and never falcately compressed apically ; segments not trans- 
versely impressed ; postpetiole with or without discal carinae. Areolet 
irregular and entire, or wanting. 
Forster’s name Homotropus (Verh. pr. Rheinl. 1868, p. 162; used also 
by Waterhouse for Coleoptera in 1878) cannot be applied to this genus 
since as at present constituted, it comprises species with and without 
areolet and petiolar carinae; omofropus must, I think be confined to the 
dimidiatus, and, perhaps, e/egans groups of species. Nor can we adopt 
Homoporus, Thomson (O. E. 1890, 1488), since the same author had 
already (Hym. Scand. 1878, 64) applied it to a genus of Pteromalid Chal- 
cididae. I have, consequently, had to erect anew name, which is used to 
exactly coincide in extent with Hvmoporus, Thomson, 1890. ‘To erect 
genera upon the stability of the areolet of these instable insects is as use- 
less as has been the erection of species solely upon their colouration, the 
synyonymy of which is become somewhat cumbersome.. 
