PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 23, NO. 5, MAY, 1921 103 



other reached the Greeks of Asia Minor from the Orient. This, 

 however, is mere speculation. What we do know is as follows: 

 The word is an t-stem and can be traced only in the Ionic dialect. 

 Linnaeus used it as if it were declined with a stem. In all 

 modern works it is considered Latin and credited to him. 



From these facts and the foregoing we conclude that he made 

 a mistake in using aphides in the plural and that the family 

 name of the plant lice should be written Aphiidae and not 

 Aphididae. 



In preparing this paper I have to thank my father, J. J. Baker 

 of Vancouver, B. C., and Prof. O. J. Todd of the University of 

 the same place for suggestions. 



NOTES ON THE NESTING HABITS OF TACHYTES. (HYM.) 1 



Bv J. B. PARKER, Professor of Biology, Catholic University of America. 



These notes are based on observations of the nesting activities 

 of two species of Tachytes, T. dubia Rohwer and T. breviventris 

 ' Cresson, both of which prey upon Conocephalus breviventris 

 Scudder, one of the long-horned grasshoppers. T. dubia was 

 found nesting near Danville, Ohio, on August 22, 1917. The 

 nesting site was located on a high bank of a creek bordered on 

 either side by a fringe of trees. The site itself was not over ten 

 feet square, sparsely covered with long, loose grass, and shut in 

 by trees on three sides. The ground was an alluvial deposit of 

 fine silt and sand. Some half dozen nests were found on this 

 site but only two were opened. When I visited the site again in 

 the summer of 1919, the whole bank had been carried away by 

 the stream. 



The first burrow opened was about eighteen inches in length, 

 not straight in its course the irregularities being due probably 

 to the presence of roots in the soil and at no point more than 

 four inches below the surface. The tunnel was about the size 

 of a lead pencil and the entrance to it was always left open. No 

 lateral tunnels were formed, the brood chambers being in a line 

 at the end of the main tunnel. Where a brood chamber is con- 

 structed the diameter of the tunnel is considerably enlarged. 

 This nest contained three brood chambers separated from one 

 another by partitions of soil solidly packed in. The chamber 

 at the extreme end of the tunnel, the first one the wasp con- 

 structed, contained three grasshoppers with an egg in place. 

 The second contained two grasshoppers with an egg in place, 

 and the third one grasshopper and no egg. The second nest 

 opened did not differ materially from the first in point of struc- 

 ture and arrangement; it contained two brood chambers of 



two species of Tachytes were kindly identified tor me by Mr. S. A. 

 Rohwer and the grasshopper by Mr. \. \. Caudcll. Specimens of all three 

 species have been placed in the U. S. National Museum. 



