British Braconidcs. 7 



Brischke, Giraud, &c. (where no means of verification 

 exist) the present writer cannot be responsible ; they are 

 quotations which depend upon the authority of others. 

 They have, however, been as far as possible scrutinised, 

 and many rejected as being, from different causes, in- 

 admissible, or the reasons for disputing their accuracy 

 have been stated. 



In the identification of minute similar species, it is, 

 as a general principle, safer and easier to trust to good 

 descriptions than to the inspection of preserved speci- 

 mens. In many cases, however, the value of types is 

 indisputable, and large resources of this kind are avail- 

 able to the enquirer. The general collections of Stephens 

 and Ruthe are in the British Museum, together with 

 types of Ajjhidiides and Microfjastcrides deposited by 

 Haliday. The Hope'Museum at Oxford contains many 

 named specimens from Wesmael and Forster, to which 

 were added, in 1884, some of Haliday 's from Trinity 

 College, Dublin. Gravenhorst's collection still exists at 

 Breslau ; that of Nees von Esenbeck at Bonn, in small 

 glazed boxes ; Wesmael's at Brussels; Van Vollenhoven's 

 at Leyden ; Forster's remains in Europe unsold, while 

 that of Curtis is less conveniently placed in Australia. 



The earliest arrangements of the Braconidce, those of 

 Nees von Esenbeck and Haliday, were based upon the 

 palpary system, and of them it is unnecessary to say 

 more than that they exhibit in a high degree the dis- 

 advantages of that method. Haliday's system, published 

 in the * Entomological Magazine ' (vol. i., pp. 261 — 266), 

 still has its value as a remarkable collection of acute 

 observations, but fails as a linear arrangement ; insects 

 of the same genus, owing to the arithmetic of the palpi, 

 being found in widely different places ; the group of 

 Dacnusa, e. g., appears no less than four times over. 

 The Generic Synopsis of the same author, appended to 

 vol. ii. of Westwood's "Introduction," supplies no general 

 system, but gives only brief outlines of the genera. 

 Wesmael, unacquainted with Haliday's writings, divided 

 the Braconidce into three principal groups. I. Cylostomi. 

 These have the clypeus notched or emarginate on its 

 lower edge, and the labrum so withdrawn as to form a 

 sort of palate to the oral aperture ; the mandibles are 

 too short to cross each other, but, only touching at the 

 points, they form, with the clypeus, a somewhat circular 

 opening. II. CUdustovii. The clypeus is not, or hardly, 



