Mesolecus | BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 169 

tennae fulvescent, with scape flavidous, beneath. Thorax anteriorly sub- 
elevated with at most a small pale callosity before radices; notauli short 
and slender; mesopleurae alutaceous, with speculum glabrous and nitidu- 
lous; metanotal areae wanting, petiolar area minute and very incomplete, 
spiracular area often excarinate above. Abdomen of @ with central seg- 
ments pale marked or margined, of 2 with only incisures pale; ventral 
plica flavidous, apically black; basal segment narrow, twice longer than 
apically broad with basal fovea distinct and discal sulcus obsolete; second 
and third longer than broad with strong thyridil. Legs slender, strongly 
elongate and pale red with anterior coxae and trochanters of @ stramin- 
eous, of 2 basally black; hind legs black with apices of trochanters and 
a broad central tibial band extending nearly to the base, whitish, their 
tarsi testaceous; hind calcaria white and linear. Wings with stigma pale 
infuscate, radix and tegulae whitish; areolet usually entire. Length, 
3—12 mm. 
Both sexes are said to occasionally have the abdomen mainly red above 
(?.1Z. femorator, Thoms. 2047) and the hind coxae and femora of the ¢ are 
rarely red-marked. ‘The clypeal conformation is unique in the present 
genus, in which the elongate form is remarkable. 
This species should be common wherever bracken is found in any 
quantity, certainly its single known host is sufficiently abundant; but I 
can only find it recorded rarely from Silesia and the Hartz, uncommonly 
in central and southern Sweden, from Prussia and France. Ratzeburg 
records it as having emerged with Sfrongylogaster cingulatus in 1849 (loc. 
cit.) and Brischke bred it from larvae of the same host (/oc. ci/.), having 
already raised a 9 from a sawfly larva of doubtless the same species 
found on Prerts aqguilina (Schr. Phys. Ges. Konig. 1871, p. 80). Stephens’ 
¢ from Darenth Wood, now in Mus. Brit., is correctly named; Marshall 
found a pair at Lydford in 1882 and Lastingham in Yorks; and it has 
been somewhat doubtfully reported from Bradford (Trans. Yorks. Union, 
1878, p. 70). I have only seen single specimens, and it appears uncom- 
mon though widely distributed in England; Oxshott on 24th June, 1897 
(Beaumont), Shere in Surrey (Capron), Felden in Herts (Piffard). Only 
a single pair has occurred to me, the g on flowers of Heracleum sphondy- 
fium on roth July, 1900, at Westleton lamb pits, in Suffolk and the ? 
among bracken on 11th July, rg09, at Hursthill in the New Forest. 
40. renovatus, 7.1. 
Mesoleius ? brevispina, Bridg. Trans. Ent. Soc. 1887, p. 372, ¢ (nec M. brevis- 
pina, Thoms. O. E. ix. 934 nec non Saotus brevispina, Thoms. O. E. xix. 2018). 
Head transverse, posteriorly constricted; clypeus apically truncate, 
depressed and before the apex transversely elevated ; face and frontal 
orbits flavous. Antennae about as long as the body and _ infuscate, 
rufescent beneath. ‘Thorax shining, with notauli obsolete; prothorax 
below, large hamate mesonotal marks, two discal mesonotal vittae, 
callosity before and below radices, mesopleurae and sternum, flavous ; 
mesopleurae obsoletely reticulate; areola and petiolar area subdistinct. 
Scutellum centrally or entirely flavous. Abdomen black and compressed 
from the second segment, with extreme apex of the first, of the second 
broadly, a narrow discal mark on apices of the remainder, and the venter, 
flavous ; basal segment longer than broad, centrally depressed, with basal 
