240 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Dr. Aurivillius and asked him whether he could spare me 

 specimens of this remarkable insect. Promptly, by return mail, 

 he forwarded a large series in alcohol and others dry. These 

 were carefully studied, and his conclusions verified in every case. 

 After two years in Canada balsam, however, the specimens have 

 cleared very considerably, and one can trace at the base of the 

 antennal club the evanescent remnants of former funicle joints. 

 The tarsi, however, are undoubtedly four-jointed ; no hidden fifth 

 joint can be found. 



A few days ago, in looking over some slide mounts of Chal- 

 cididae, I was delighted to find three specimens of an insect which 

 not only belongs to this remarkable genus Arrhenophagus, but 

 which corresponds exactly with Aurivillius' species, A. chionas- 

 pidis. The label on the slide indicates that these specimens were 

 reared by Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt at Kirkwood, Mo., in May, 

 1888 (the same year in which the species was described by 

 Aurivillius), from a barklouse on rose. It is altogether probable 

 that the Missouri and the Swedish specimens had a common, 

 more or less immediate, ancestry ; in other words, the species 

 was probably carried from America to Europe or from Europe 

 to America. At present it seems probable that the form is 

 European, and it may readily have been carried to this country 

 upon rose bushes or other imported plants, while living beneath 

 scale-insects attached to the plants. There is no doubt that the 

 insect is a degraded Encyrtine. Its four-jointed tarsi upset the 

 old main division of the Chalcididae into pentamera, tetramera, 

 and trimera ; and in this iconoclastic work it is not alone, since 

 recent investigations have convinced me that the genera Pterop- 

 trix Westwood, and Eretmocerus Haldeman, both tetramerous, 

 belong properly to the subfamily Aphelininas, all the other 

 representatives of which are pentamerous. 



Dr. Riley said he was much interested in the paper, and fully 

 agreed with the conclusions of the writer, especially as to the 

 introduction of the form from Europe to America or vice versa. 

 So curious a monotypical genus could hardly have originated 

 independently in the two countries. He was glad to see that the 

 author was not inclined to give undue weight to the number of 

 tarsal joints. He had been impressed with the futility of po- 

 domeral variation unassociated with other important characters in 

 recent studies of the Termites and Embiids. Dr. Gill said that 

 in such cases we should be influenced by the assemblage of 



