A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Additions, 1900- 1907 {continued) 



Halictus breviceps. Two females taken near Cojidock Andrena hattorfiana. Two males on Knautia 



in 1899. arvensis at Copdock in July, by Hocking 



Andrena niveata. Probably not uncommon ; taken Nomada sexfasciata. There was only indirect evi- 



at Brandon in May by Perkins, and on panley- dence of this species' occurrence till one was 



flowen at Tostock in June and July, by taken at the burrows of Eucera longicornis at 



Tuck Copdock 



ICHNEUMONIDEA 



EVANIIDAE 



Only seven species of this family had been found in Britain in 1872, since which time I am 

 aware of the addition of but one kind.' Only two of these species appear to be at all common in 

 Britain ; and these are parasitic upon Aculeata, Chelostoma, &c., but do not prey, like the typical 

 genus Evania, upon the egg-capsules of cockroaches. Both these species appear to be abundant 

 throughout Suffolk, since Perkins in the Breck district about Brandon, and Tuck about Bury St. 

 Edmunds have observed them, but only one of the remaining five has been recorded hence. The 

 first of these, Foenus jaculator, has not been noticed about Ipswich, though I have found it upon carrot 

 flowers at Tuddenham St. Mary in August ; the second, F. aiiectator^ is common everywhere in July, 

 and has occurred to me upon flowers of Heracleum sphondylium, &c., at Ipswich, Bramford, Bentley 

 Woods, and Tuddenham Fen, but especially at Barham, where it is to be met with freely. Evania 

 appendigaster was first found in Britain by the Rev. James Coyte of Ipswich, in Suffolk ;'* it is very 

 rare, and even now regarded as being hardly permanently established in our Islands. 



Chalcididae 



No group of British insects is more in want of elucidation than the pretty little members of 

 this extensive family, which are abundant everywhere upon herbage and flowers. Walker's works 

 upon them are indeed ' love's labour lost,' for they are quite unintelligible to the modern systematist ; 

 and I believe Wood's ambitious attempt at listing the whole of the British insects to contain the 

 only catalogue — a quite valueless one — of them in existence. I have from various sources obtained 

 the names of a very few of my numerous captures in this group, but until some student arises to 

 propound a feasible classification, we shall for the most part have to content ourselves with the mere 

 compilation of specimens and the observation of their interesting economy, which is considerably 

 complicated, since the majority are hyperparasites. Nevertheless the following notes may be of some 

 little value as regards the distribution of the Chalcididae in Suffolk, though only some fifteen species 

 have been determined. 



I once found Chalcis minuta, Linn., on umbelliferous flowers by the Gipping at Sproughton j 

 and Smicra sispes, Linn., which is said to prey upon Stratiomyid Diptera, is not uncommon in 

 Oulton Broad; Tuck has found it at Finborough and in Benacre Broad, and Paget records it as 

 rather common in marshes at Gorleston during August, in 1834, under the name Clavipes, Fab. 

 The handsome Perilampus ruficornis. Fab., is often common in the spring in Bentley and Assing- 

 ton Woods among the undergrowth. I have taken Torymus nobilis. Boh., at Bentley, and several 

 times bred Torymus regius, Nees, from the marble galls of Cynips Kollari at Bentley, where 

 T. erucarum has occasionally been noticed ; and the pretty little Micromelus pyrrhogaster is by no 

 means rare at Bramford in the autumn. Claeonymus depressus has turned up at Little Blakenham, 

 with Eupelmus excavatus, Dalm., in September. On the window of a house at Bentley I took an 

 example of the strange Caratomus megacephalus, Fab., of Stephens' Illustrations, on I July 1 903 ; it 

 resembles nothing so much as the hammer-headed shark. Megastigmus dorsalis. Fab., has been swept 

 at the Lowestoft denes in August. Callimome lasioptera appears widely distributed ; and at Felix- 

 stowe the apterous Cerocephala formiciformis, Westw., has been found upon the book I was read- 

 ing at the end of May. Eurytoma rosae, Nees, has occurred at Burgh Castle in August, and in the 

 Bentley woods many Oligosthenus stigma. Fab., have emerged from the galls of Rhodites rosat. 

 The very distinct Decatoma higuttata, Swed., was swept from flowers at Bramford early in August 

 1897 ; but of the rest, though they comprise members of the genera Eulophus, Isosoma, Callimomty 

 &c., I have utterly failed to obtain reliable identifications, excepting Cheiropachus quadrum. Fab., 

 once found commonly at Sotherton and once at Belstead ; and Cerapterocerus mirabilis, which 

 Saunders took at Southwold in July 1877. Comys Swederi, Dalm., too, has turned up at Wherstead 

 and Tuddenham. 



' Cf. Eaiom. i88o, p. 89. '" Donovan, Nal. Hist, of Brit. Insects, x, pi. 329. 



no 



