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ON TPIE ICHNEUMONID^ OF THE BANKSIAN 

 COLLECTION IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



By Claude Morley, F.Z.S., F.E.S., &c. 



Fabricius's connection with Sir Joseph Banks is obscure, 

 but it is probable they became acquainted at the time that the 

 former was working upon insects at the British Museum. This 

 was previous to 1775, for many Banksian specimens were brought 

 forward by him, including all the Australian ones, in ' Systema 

 Entomologiae' of that date. In these notes, however, I have had 

 before me his ' Species Insectorum,' published at Hamburg and 

 Kiel in 1781, and the numbers preceding each species refer to 

 that work (pp. 420-442), since all were not enumerated at the 

 earlier date, and such as were there instanced are again referred to 

 at the later. 



Besides these, the collection contains only the types of the 

 three species given by Nils S. Swederus in his paper " Fort- 

 sattning af Beskrifningen pa 50 nya Species af Insecter" (Sv. 

 Ak. Handl. 1787, pp. 279-281). 



The following list comprises all the specimens in the Banksian 

 Collection in their order as placed, which has been preserved as 

 at first received by the Museum authorities. The Collection was 

 presented by the Linnean Society in 1863, and to those speci- 

 mens especially referred to as typical, in the ' Museum Register 

 of Zoological Accessions,' I have here suffixed an asterisk.! From 

 the same source comes the information that " the following type 

 specimens were not in the Collection when it was presented to 

 the British Museum. . . . Ichneumon melioratorius, Otaheite ; 

 Cryptus nutatorius, New Holland ; C. fuscator, Sandwich Isles ; 

 Pimpla barbator ; and Ophion luteus, New Zealand." 



It may be well to mention that the Antipodean insects were 

 taken by Sir Joseph Banks while on his memorable voyage round 

 the world with Captain Cook ; most of them when the latter was 

 stranded at Endeavour River, where Cooktown now stands, in 

 1770, and where he had to remain for repairs for four months. 

 A copy of Cook's own sketch of the spot of beaching is in 

 the library there. 



MS. Generic Label :— ICHNEUMON. 



1. sugillatorius. — 2. Coelichneumon sugillatorius, Linn. One 

 female with immaculate post-petiole, and one male with neither 

 head nor front legs. 



f Ichneumon oculator, there indicated as such from " England," is not 

 now represented in the collection, though said by Fabricius (Spp.Ins. No. 80) 

 to have been in " Mus. Dom. Banks"; nor do I find the equally indigenous 

 representatives of Ophion latrator and 0. saltator. 



M 2 



