OF WASHINGTON. 



77 



BRACONID PARASITE OF ADULT COCCINELLID^E. 



In the first volume of Insect Life (pp. 101-104) the late Dr. 

 Riley gave an interesting account of a parasite of the spotted 

 ladybird, Megilla maculata DeG., the initial paragraph of 

 which reads : "Up to the present time no parasite of adult 

 Coccinellidse have been recorded in this country. " A brief 

 mention of this same parasite published ten years earlier was 

 evidently overlooked. It is by Townend Glover and appeared 

 in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 

 the year 1877, as follows: "A parasitic insect attacks the 

 Hippodamia (Coccinella} maculata (Fig. 43), or spotted lady 

 bird, in a very similar manner, [to Aphidius or Trioxys infesting 

 plant-lice] and was taken in Maryland." 



Glover's illustration is perfectly recognizable as the same species 

 figured by Dr. Riley, and Mr. Ash mead expresses the opinion that 

 it will prove to be identical with the Microctonus {Dinocamp- 

 tus) terminatus Wesm. of which Ratzeburg has given a good 

 account in his Ichneumonen der Forstinsecten (vol. Ill, p. 61). 



FIG 2 Megilla maculata, parasitized 

 [from INSECT LIFE j 



FIG. 3. Perilitus americana [from INSECT LIFE.] 



It was reared from Coccinella j-punctata and C. 5-punctata, 

 common European ladybirds not known in this country. Dr. 

 Riley gave a translation of Ratzeburg's notes and proposed for 

 the American specimens the provisional name of Centistes 

 americana^ afterwards describing it (1. c., p. 338) as Perilitus 

 americanus. 



In June, 1891, there were received at the Division of Entomol 

 ogy, from the Death Valley Expedition, several living specimens 

 of Hippodamia 5-signata Kirby, with the statement that they 

 had been found in great abundance on Mt. Magruder, in Nevada, 

 at a high altitude above snow line. Being desirous of studying 



