WALSH — DESCRIPTIONS OF N. AM. HYMENOPTERA. 1 43 



entering it at its extreme tip. 7. The bulla A is represented only bj an 

 indistinct semi-buUa on the outer side of the petiole, while in all my 7 

 specimens of inquisitor it is very distinct and straddles its vein as usual. 

 Length $ .28-. 40 inch. Front wing $ .24-.36. Ovipos. .16-. 26 inch. 



Three ? ; c? unknown to me. Would be almost certainly 

 taken for a variety of inquisitor, so closely does it resemble that 

 species, but for the difference in the areolet, which is perfectly 

 constant in all my specimens of both species. 



Pimpla [alboricta, Cress., Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. iii. p. 147.]— d".— Dif- 

 fers from the normal $ o{ inquisitor only as follows : — i. The clypeus and 

 the mandibles, except their teeth, are white. 2. The antenna? are \ as 

 long as the body, and the scape is white below. 3. The abdomen is com- 

 paratively much more coarsely, and although closely, yet not confluently, 

 punctate. 4. The 4 front legs are entirely white except the femora, and 

 except that the middle tibiie have a rufous exterior vitta. In the hind legs 

 both trochanters are white, and the tibia have their second \ and ter- 

 minal f (not \) black. 5. The wings are hyaline ; the stigma is whitish 

 at its extreme base; and the areolet is sessile and triangular. The bulla A 

 is entirely absent, the others normal, C and D pretty wide apart. Length 

 cf .27 inch. Front wing ^ .19 inch. 



One c? ; 9 unknown to me. Alight be taken for the c? of the 

 preceding but for the white clypeus and mandibles, which parts 

 do not vary sexually in Ichneumonidce, so far as I am aware, where 

 both sexes have a black face. In the coloration of its legs and 

 its general appearance it resembles much my % of inquisitor, but 

 is distinguishable rot only by its very different areolet, but by the 

 much shorter ist joint of its abdomen. 



Genus POLYSPHINCTA, Gravenhorst. 



The insects which I refer to this genus are, to my knowledge, 

 the first representatives of it hitherto described as North Ameri- 

 can, and apparently belong to two different genera, since the areo- 

 lar cross-vein in Section i is subobsolete, as is said to be the case 

 in Polysphincta, and in Section 2 is fully developed. In both the 

 venter is as much excavated as in Pimpla, but in Section 2 the ist 

 joint of the scapus is truncate from inside to outside more ob- 

 liquely, and the 2d joint is comparatively smaller, than in Section 

 1. As the ist Section agrees pretty well with the characters of 

 the genus, and the 2d does not, it is consequently the latter that 

 is aberrant ; but I dislike establishing a new genus from a single 

 specimen of one sex, and therefore leave it provisionally as a Sec- 



