AUTHOK'S PREFACE. 



THE Chalcididae is the least known group of our indigenous 

 insects, with the possible single exception of the Thripsidae. 

 Little or nothing has been published upon it since Francis 

 Walker's time, and his multitudinous species are badly in need 

 of revision. No catalogue has hitherto appeared, and this is 

 not surprising when, in addition to our ignorance, the difficulty 

 of publication is understood. As there is some misappre- 

 hension on this point, I may say that the Entomological 

 Society has entirely abandoned the idea of bringing out further 

 parts of its excellent " General Catalogue of the Insects 

 of the British Isles" with which the present is uniform. 

 None deplore this more than myself. 



Mr. C. O. Waterhouse has kindly edited the present list, 

 and I need say no more than that the manuscript has been 

 altered only in the insertion of numerals before the family 

 and generic names, the use of diphthongs, and the substitution 

 of small initial letters in the case of many proper names. For 

 these three points I am not responsible. We now have 

 Catalogues, though of very variable efficiency, of the whole of 

 the British Hymenoptera. 



CLAUDE MOELEY. 



Monks Soliara House, 



Suffolk. 

 March 1910. 



