162 {HE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Museum, has most kindly spent some time in searching for these 
types, but without success. I cannot do better than quote his 
remarks: ‘‘ This extensive collection . . . . came into the pos- 
session of our Museum in the early eighties and was then 
overhauled, when it was found that many specimens had been 
destroyed by mites and mould. Notwithstanding this, the greater 
part of the collection is still in a wonderful state of preserva- 
tion. The trouble is, however, that the specimens have been 
often altered from Haliday’s original arrangement, and a great 
many of them are unlabelled.” 
In 1884 some of Haliday’s specimens were deposited in the 
Hope Museum, Oxford, and, in reply to my inquiries as to whether 
Haliday’s types were there, Professor Poulton was good enough 
to send me for inspection three specimens which have been in 
the Oxford collection for many years under the name of vestalis ; 
these, however, on examination, proved to belong to the genera 
Microgaster and Microplitis. 
The following is Haliday’s description : 
“Mas et Fem. Thorace punctatissimo; squamulis et tibiis 
ferrugineis, harum posticis apice fuscis; alis hyalinis, Fem aculeo 
brevissimo. Fem WM. intricato* simillimus ; mesothoracis scutum et 
scutellum tota confertissime punctata opaca; ale hyaline, stigmate 
dilutius ferrugineo ; squamule ferruginex.” 
I give a description taken from thirty specimens in my own 
collection : 
Black; palpi pale, belly at base and fore and middle tibiz 
testaceous ; hind tibize testaceous, infuscate at apex, fore femora testa- 
ceous with the base dark, middle femora fuscous except at apex, hind 
femora blackish, hind cox above subrugulose, basally smoother and 
more shining ; wings hyaline, stigma fuscous; antenne of female as 
long as the body, of male somewhat longer; mesothorax and 
scutellum densely punctate, almost rugulose; metathorax rather 
coarsely rugulose, subcarinated; first and second segments of the 
abdomen rugulose, 2 rather shorter than 3, the rest smooth and 
shining; terebra short; valvula ventralis large; length 23-3 mm., 
expands 6-64 mm. 
In all my specimens the stigma is rather darker than men- 
tioned by Haliday, but this is not an important character. Differs 
from congestus and simulans in the totally punctate mesothorax 
and scutellum and larger valvula ventralis. 
The cocoons are the palest cream colour and have a silky 
appearance; those I possess are in bunches loosely connected by 
a few threads, but were constructed under unnatural conditions. 
In May, 1911, Alfred Hedges sent me a number of cocoons from 
which the imagines emerged on June 6th; these were obtained, 
gregariously, from larve of Melitea aurinia taken in Berkshire. 
* Intricatus, Hal = congestus, Nees. 
