362 F. D. Morice. 
On Gorytes niger Costa S and 2. Hm.) 
By F. D. Morice, Woking, England. 
While travelling in Greece last spring with Dr. Schmiede- 
knecht and M. Maurice Pie I took, among the ruins of Olympia, 
several G'S' of the eurious little hymenopteron Gorytes niger 
Costa, and also in the same locality on May 11th a single Q, 
which must, I feel sure, belong to the same species. 
In Costa’s original deseription he says nothing as to 
the sex of the specimen or specimens before him, but I gather 
from Handlirsch's Monograph that the © of Gorytes niger 
is as yet unknown. My specimen agrees very closely with the 
d except that the 2 basal segments of the abdomen are 
brightly red and only slightly elouded with black towards 
their apices, As in the (4, the tibiae anticae are 
streaked in front with yellowish-white, the apices of the 
mandibles rufescent, the base of the seutellum impressed with 
a row of conspicuous foveolae, the triangular area of the me- 
dian segment large, well defined, and obliquely striated — its 
sides rugose with a shining smoother space nearly bordering 
the area. The puncturation seems to me quite identical with 
that of the €. Thus in both, the two basal segments of the 
abdomen are shining — the 1st with a few and the 2nd with 
many, very large scattered punetures, in whose intervals ap- 
pears (but only when highly magnified) another intensely fine 
piligerous punetulation. The other segments are comparatively 
dull, being covered almost evenly with very close fine punetures, 
and only their extreme apices a little shining and rufescent. 
In the fore-wings the radial cell is distinetly elouded throughout, 
the 2nd and 3rd cubitals only a little so and only in the middle. 
The length of my speeimen is about 6 millimetres. 
As I am not aware that anything has yet been pu- 
blisbed about the habits of the species, I may mention that 
the behaviour of the males struck me as very peculiar, and alto- 
gether unlike that of any other Gorytes known to me, I never 
saw them among flowers or grasses, but always running ra- 
pidly over smooth stones — the bases of fallen columns ete. — 
among the ruins during the hottest part of the morning. They 
did not look like Gorytes either in appearance or movements, 
but rather (as Dr. Schmiedeknecht remarked to me) like 
Nitela. Unluckily I can say nothing as to the behaviour of 
the female, which I did not determine till after my return to 
England, and of whose capture I have no particular recollec- 
tion. I am sure, however, that I did not take it along with 
the 4 on the stones, but probably on a flower near them, 
