A SYNOPSIS OF BRITISH PROCTOTRYPIDiE (OXYURA) . 3 



DISOGMUS, Forster. 



Hym. Stud., ii, 1856, p. 99. 



Eleven European and three American species are known. 

 We have but two : 



(2). 1. Pronotum laterally tuberculate ; metanotum'tricarinate. 



1. areolator, Hal. 

 (1). 2. Pronotum not tuberculate ; metanotum unicarinate. 



2. nigricomis, Kief. 



1. DiSOGMUS AREOLATOR, Hal. 



Proctotrupes areolator, Hal., Hym. Brit., i, 1839, p. 13, 3 2 . 

 Curt., Brit. Entom., xvi. 1839. -pi. dccxliv, 2. Disogmas areo- 

 lator, Forst., lib, cit., p. 100, 3; Ashmead, Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus., 

 1893, p. 332, pi. xiii, fig. 6 ; Andre, Spp. Hym. Eur., x, 1907, 

 pi. xi, fig. 6. p. 283, 3 2 . 



This species is at present confined to Britain and is among 

 our rarer kinds. Taken in sylvan places in Ireland during the 

 autumn by Haliday and in England by Walker. It has occurred 

 to me singly on bracken at Wilverley Inclosure in the New 

 Forest, and by sweeping long grass at Wortham in Suffolk, both 

 in the middle of June. That it is actually much less rare than 

 would seem is proved by its existence in my Monks Soham 

 garden, where I have never through fifteen years found it wild. On 

 April 10th, 1907, a piece of ordinary old willow-stump was brought 

 in from this garden, bored by insects ; in the early morning of 

 May 10th a female of the present species had emerged there- 

 from ; two more were out on 13th inst., and made no attempt 

 to come up to the light ; on 20th a fourth emerged ; on 18th 

 a single Proctotrypes ftiscipes was bred ; but the only other 

 emergants were one female sawfly, Pteronus viminalis, on 

 21st at 11 a.m., four very small — too small, I think, to have 

 been hosts of this parasite — dipterous Sciara sp. on 13th and 

 20th, and a couple of the heteromerous beetle, Pyrochroa serra- 

 ticornis, on 13th and 20th. On May 20th, 1910, Mr. Ernest A. 

 Elliott took the species in some quantities in his garden at 

 Belsize Grove, in Hampstead, running over a half-decayed black 

 poplar billet, recently felled ; it was noticed upon this and a 

 similar billet from the same tree for four years in succession, 

 until the wood rotted and fell to pieces, in annually increasing 

 numbers, but no probable host was detected (such as the above 

 P. serraticornis). I have seen one pair from Nottingham in 

 May, on 6th at Kadcliffe-on-Trent and on 15th at Glapton, near 

 Clifton. 



2. Disogmus nigricornis, Kieff. 



Andre, lib. cit., p. 285, <$ . 



Unknown to me, and doubtfully British: 'France et 

 probablement Ecosse "— Kieffer. I.e. 



