240 G. E. J. NIXON 



The females have the antenna evenly brownish, with the propodeum, tergite i and 

 the median field of tergite (2 + 3) slightly more strongly rugose. I am provisionally 

 labelling these specimens as " marginahis Ns " with a query. 



Host : Bred in Germany by R. Hinz from Larentia pomoriana Eversmann 

 (Geometridae), 1 <$. 



This is a slender, long-legged species with the habitus of the vitripennis-group of 

 Apanteles. It is somewhat isolated but perhaps related to the calceatus-gvouv from 

 which it differs at once in having the posterior, polished band of the scutellum inter- 

 rupted at middle and the propodeum with a keel. 



The PERIANDER-Grovp 

 Monobasic. 



Protomicroplitis periander sp. n. 



This is a most distinctive species, without close allies. 



$. Yellowish brown ; the head paler than the mesoscutum and the thorax paler beneath. 

 Legs, including the hind coxa, yellowish throughout. Wings strongty but rather unevenly 

 brownish. 



Occiput not scooped out behind the ocelli. Ocelli in a high triangle, the posterior, transverse 

 tangent to the anterior ocellus passing far in front of the posterior pair. Antenna a little shorter 

 than the body, slightly tapered apically and with the preapical segment about one and a half 

 times longer than wide. 



Mesoscutum dull, strongly, more or less confluently, punctate. Veins of the fore wing 

 somewhat thickened (Text-fig. 294) ; cubitellan cell of the hind wing very small ; vannal lobe 

 beyond its widest part with sparse, minute, projecting hairs. Hind coxa rather small, not 

 reaching the middle of the gaster. 



Tergite 1 about one and a half times longer than wide, grooved medially ; its sides gently 

 rounded at apex ; smooth, except for rugosity at posterior corners. Tergite (2 -(- 3) with a 

 median field that is widened anteriorly. Hypopygium very characteristically clothed with long 

 silky hairs. 



Length: ca. 2-8 mm. 



Philippines : Los Banos, 5 $$, one the TYPE, 3 <$$, bred 23.iii.1923, (G. B. 

 Ingalla). This is presumably a gregarious parasite though the host is not given. 

 Type in the U.S. National Museum. 



This species is easily recognisable on the combination of characters given in the 

 key. Within the material I have had before me it is aberrant but its affinities are 

 clearly with the large assemblage of species that I associate with the xanthaspis- 

 group. 



The XANTHASPIS-Grovp 



Contains the vast majority of the species that fall within my interpretation of 

 Protomicroplitis and is little more than an artificial segregation within a large com- 

 plex of species that contain also the groups of basimacula and fasciipennis. The two 

 last mentioned groups stand at opposite extremes with regard to the sculptural 

 modifications shown by the sclerite I call tergite (2 + 3). The group of xanthaspis 

 falls somewhere in between. 



