CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE BRITISH BRACONID.E. 153 



Marshall's descriptions, excepting that the second abdominal 

 segment in the female is quadrate, and the first in the male is 

 rather longer than its apical breadth. 



Three females bred in the New Forest in x\ugiist from small 

 sallow-feeding geometer larvae, probably Cabera exanthemata, and 

 also two males and three females reared from Cilix spinvla 

 (Cambridge), have antennae 33-36-jointed. I am not inclined to 

 think these are a form of circumscriptns and must echo Bridgman, 

 who took a female in 1889 near Norwich, and, as mentioned by 

 Morley, writes of it : "I believe it to be tesiaceus — I think it 

 must be testaceus." Harwood has an insect in his collection 

 bearing a label " Rhogas testaceus " in Bridgman's writing, and 

 it is possible that this may be the identical specimen of which 

 Bridgman writes; but, however that may be, it is certainly of 

 the same species as the insects bred by me and mentioned above. 

 Eeinhard tells us that testaceus has been reared as a gregarious 

 parasite from large larvse of Cerura viiiula and C. bifida, and it is 

 also recorded as bred on the continent as a solitary parasite from 

 such hosts as Cilix spinula and Kupetliecia sohrinata ; this 

 rather points to confusion, and I imagine that should the 

 gregarious broad-bodied parasite of the puss moths ever be 

 rediscovered it may be necessary to separate it from the testaceus 

 of Spinola and Nees. 



Cantkerius, sp. nov. 



Male. — Black, with only occasionally a faint suggestion of a paler 

 spot on the disc of the second abdominal segment. 



Female. — Black, with the first abdominal segment marked with 

 a flavo-testaceous chevron, the point of which rests on the centre of 

 the apex of the segment ; second segment with a large central 

 flavo-testaceous spot on the disc, also, occasionally, a small pale basal 

 spot on the third segment, and the apex of that and the two following 

 segments more or less testaceous. 



Both sexes have the vertex, frons, face and orbits rufofuscous 

 (sometimes almost black), with the clypeus, mandibles and palpi 

 testaceous. Belly fuscous (rather lighter in the female), prosternum, 

 mesosternum and mesopleuras rufofuscous, the last distinctly longi- 

 tudinally paler where adjoining the mesosternum. Legs testaceous 

 with the hind cox£e alone fuscous, hind tibiae apically and all the 

 tarsi darker. Antenuce dark, with scape, and flagellum basally 

 beneath, testaceous, about as long as the body, 40-42-jointed. 

 Mesopleurae slightly granulated, rugose under wings, metathorax 

 and abdomen pubescent. Mesothorax, scutellum and metathorax 

 granulated, the last with a distinct central longitudinal carina. 



Abdomen of male elongate, of female somewhat shorter ; first 

 segment half as long again as its apical breadth, second slightly 

 longer than broad in the male, quadrate in the female, third broader 

 than long ; first, second and base of third rugulose. The remainder 

 smooth, first and second carinated. Terebra very slightly exserted. 



