174 



Descriptions and Figures of two Insects 



deed, they might 

 have been broken 

 off. In another 

 specimen, as it ap- 

 pears to me, of the 

 same species, of 

 which I captured 

 many individuals in 

 a corn field near 

 Cambridge and else- 

 where (the parts of 

 the mouth of which 

 are figured in b, c, 

 d, e, and f\ the 

 jaws were extended, 

 the maxillary palpi 

 6-jointed, and the 

 labial ones ~4-joint- 

 ed ; thus establish- 

 ing the identity of 

 the genus, which 

 has been considered 

 by Mr. Haliday 

 [Entomological Ma- 

 gazine, i. 264.) as 

 synonymous with 

 Ccelinius of Esen- 

 beck; which latter, from having 5-jointed maxillary palpi, 

 and S-jointed labial ones (see Esenbeck's Hymenopterorum 

 Ichneumonibus Affinium Monographic, 1834, p. 9.), belongs 

 to a distinct subfamily, Braconides. 



Mr. Farmer has not given any account of the larva of this 

 insect; indeed, he merely says, of its preparatory state, that it 

 mostly appeared in the form of a pupa, which invariably pro- 

 duced the same ichneumon ; whence it would seem that he 

 supposes that this ichneumon, instead of being a parasite, is 

 the real cause of the mischief which he describes, and was, 

 consequently, in the larva state, a feeder on the vegetable. 

 This circumstance would be so completely at variance with 

 every recorded statement relative to the habits of these cuckoo 

 flies, that analogy would most strongly induce us to reject it, 

 if we could not find, what, I think, I shall be able to show, a 

 more satisfactory mode of explanation. This, it appears to 

 me, will be obtained from an examination of the " chrysalis" 

 which Mr. Farmer has supplied, and had considered as that 

 of the insect which commits the ravages upon the turnips. 



