Polyblastus] BRITISH ICHNEUMONS. 303 

transverse areae; petiolar area subperpendicular. Abdomen discally black, 
with only the ventral plica pale; basal segment margined, finely rugose- 
punctate, discally subdeplanate and gradually dilated towards its apex, 
with weak carinae; second and base of third segment subrugulosely 
punctate, and the following shining. Legs somewhat slender, black with 
the anterior, except basally, red; hind tibiae distinctly white-banded cen- 
trally. Areolet entire; radial nervure slightly curved apically; nervellus 
intercepted in or hardly below its centre. Length, s—6 mm. 
At once known by its black, centrally white-banded, hind tibiae; both 
the British females differ from the above description in having the hind 
femora red. 
It is recorded by its author from Sweden and southern Lapland in 1855, 
and I am not aware that it has been since mentioned in literature. I 
swept a single 9, carrying larvae, from low herbage in a very marshy 
spot at Brandon in Suffolk on 23rd June, 1909, and find there is a similar 
unnamed specimen, also with larvae, in Dr. Capron’s Surrey collection. 
17. melanostigmus, Holmgr. 
Polyblastus melanostigmus, Holmgr. Sv. Ak. Handl. 1855, p. 214; Brisch. 
Schr. Nat. Ges. Danz. 1878, p. 100, ¢. P. (Nemioblastus) melanostigma, 
Thoms: ©; E. 1x. 90), so gs 
Shining and black with the mouth, clypeus and tegulae flavous, and the 
legs nearly entirely red. Clypeus convex and transversely impressed 
before its subrotund apex; oral costa not dentately elevated; cheeks 
short. Antennae somewhat shorter than body, filiform and infuscate 
with scape obsoletely rufescent beneath. Metathorax with five distinct 
areae, of which the areola is a little longer than broad. Scutellum not 
pyramidal. Basal segment very distinctly constricted basally, margined, 
impressed on either side beyond the centre, with somewhat determinate 
carinae; second segment transverse and not at all impressed centrally, 
with distinct thyridil; terebra distinctly exserted, apically dilated and 
setose, with the hypopygium retracted and oviferous. Legs slender and 
red, with only the hind tarsi and apices of their tibiae nigrescent. Areolet 
wanting; stigma black with its base pale; radial nervure externally 
straight; nervellus oblique and intercepted below its centre. Length, 
7 mm. 
One of our largest species, distinguished by the black abdomen and 
entirely unimpressed second segment. I know not why Dalla Torre 
relegates the three species of Polyblas/us, treated of by Thomson under a 
slight subgenus, /Vemzodlastus (not placed by Ashmead), to a position 
alongside Plect/zscus in the Ophioninae; they are true Tryphonids, differing 
from normal Polyblas/us only in such minor points as the structure of the 
genal costa, and the areolet, as in other cases, wanting. 
I do not find this species recorded from Britain; it is said to be rare in 
Sweden, to occur in July, and to have been bred by Brischke in Prussia 
from an undetermined host. I possess two females from Piffard’s collec- 
tion, captured at Felden in Herts on 3rd June, 1900, and from Dr. Capron’s 
from Surrey. There is an oviferous 9, misnamed P. grammicus, Holmegr., 
in Marshall’s collection, in the British Museum, which was captured at 
Dulwich in August, 1890, 
