GOG 
FAUNA AND FLORA OF NORFOLK : ICHNEUMONS. 
or three at the most, but I have not thought it necessary always to 
note this, for I do not consider it a proof that an insect is 
scarce because I have only met with one or two examples, as their 
active and retiring Habits render them very difficult to capture ; on 
several occasions I have, at the same time and place, taken two or 
three specimens of an insect, and never afterwards met with it 
again. Some years ago I bred several specimens of Euryprodus 
nigriceps from the cocoons of the Hawthorn Sawfly, which I had 
collected from the hedges round Norwich during the winter months, 
but although I always secured all the cocoons I met with, I have 
never either bred or taken it since that one spring. I have taken 
very few of the larger members of the genera of Ichneumon and 
Ambhjteles , but I think most likely the list of these would be 
largely increased if the breeders of Lepidoptera saved the parasites 
they breed from the different species of Hawk-moth lame and 
from the Diurnal Lepidoptera. 
I have not in this list followed any particular arrangement of the 
species, for the best of reasons that there is no arrangement to 
follow, each author dividing his insects into groups, and almost 
invariably in a different manner ; I have in one genus followed the 
example of the Rev. T. A. Marshall in his catalogue of British 
Ichneumons, and arranged them alphabetically, which I believe is 
quite as good as any other plan. 
Some of the monographers have divided certain of the genera into 
innumerable sub-genera, Foerster for instance in his ‘ Synopsis der 
Familien und Gattungen der Ichneumonen ’ has made 538 genera 
of these live families, and out of which no less than 417 were new 
ones of his own concoction, and to give some idea of his sub- 
divisions, he put live of Holmgren’s genera into a family (30 
Tryphonidte) and subdivided it into the modest number of 114 
genera, of which 109 were new ; he also divided some of the 
genera into a great many species, in Atradodes, Gr., he described 
160 species, and out of these 150 were new species, and in 
the genus Exolytus he described 188 species, and of these 186 
are new ; Thomson has put these two genera together, under 
the head of Atradodes , thus making the very respectable number 
of 348 species according to Foerster; Thomson himself only 
describes 25 species in his monograph of the same genus of which 
14 are new; it is rather confusing to a beginner to iind nearly 
