al 
128 Rev. F. D. Morice on 
men leads me to a different opinion, I think it must be a 
duplicate of the $f described above as claripennis, n. sp. 
As Dr. Schulz points out, previous records of antennatus 
are limited to the eastern parts of the Palaearctic Region 
(from Turkestan to the Balkan peninsula, and nowhere on 
the African side of the Mediterranean). Again, from all 
that I can make out, antennatus (of which I possess only 
a single { specimen* and the Saunders coll. another), is a 
species of very constant coloration, with far less of yellow 
either on thorax or abdomen than any of my claripennis 
specimens or than the insect described by Dr. Schulz. 
Handlirsch, after examining 20 specimens of antennatus 
from many localities, has satisfied himself that the long 
apical joint of the f antenna with its inferior margin bi- 
sinuate is a constant character of antennatus; whereas in 
Antennatus 
Hemixanthopterus ie caL 
Claripennis qeayite a. 
claripennis and in the specimen now in question (vide 
Dr. Schulz’s description) the apex of the antenna is con- 
structed otherwise, viz. nearly as in nigricomis. The two 
antennatus ff before me quite answer in this respect, as 
well as in colour, to Handlirsch’s statement; and in the 
absence of positive proof that the antennal character is 
variable, I should hesitate to discard the conclusions of so 
accurate and experienced a systematist as Handlirsch. In 
the present state of our knowledge, or rather ignorance, 
as to the possible variations of structural and other char- 
acters in Sphecius, and the precise distribution of nearly 
all its recorded forms, I think it safest to act on the 
hypothesis that two forms from widely-separated locali- 
* This specimen, I ought to say, was taken by myself at Syracuse, 
and therefore at the extreme western limit of the recorded range of 
antennatus. 
