Oct., '08] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 365 



Upon the Aphis-Feeding Species of Aphelinus. 



BY L. O. HOWARD. 



Down to a comparatively recent date, the only Chalcidoid of 

 the subfamily Aphelininae known to parasitize Aphididae was 

 Aphelinus mail Hald., described by Haldeman in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Volume VI, 

 1860, pages 402-403, under the name of Eriophiliis mail. It 

 was reared by Haldeman from Schizoneura (Eriosoma) lani- 

 gera, and is referred to under this name by Comstock in his Re- 

 port as Entomologist for the United States Department of Ag- 

 riculture for 1879, and is figured at Plate VI, figure 6, from 

 specimens reared by the writer from Schizoneura lanigera oc- 

 curring upon apple upon the grounds of the Department of 

 Agriculture at Washington. The species had apparently also 

 been reared from the same host by Walsh in Illinois and by 

 Riley in Missouri. Since then it has been found to be a rather 

 general parasite of Aphididae, and the following records oc- 

 cur in the writer's Revision of the Aphelininae of North 

 America (Technical Series No. I, Division of Entomology, U. 

 S. Department of Agriculture, 1895) where it was placed in its 

 proper genus, Aphelinus: by F. M. Webster from Glyphina era- 

 grostidis at Lafayette, Indiana, September 6 to 10, 1885 ; by 

 the same observer from Aphis brassicae on turnip ; by T. A. 

 Williams, at Lincoln, Nebr., from Pemphigus fra.vinifolii, June 

 10, 1890; by the same observer from Aphis monardae at Ash- 

 land, Nebraska, May 24th, 1890, and by W. H. Ashmead from 

 Siphonophora rosae at Jacksonville, Fla., in April, 1881 (de- 

 scribed by Doctor Ashmead as Blastothri.v rosae, unfortunately 

 placing it in the wrong family). Still later and as yet unre- 

 corded rearings of this interesting species have been made by 

 Zehntner from Aphis sacchari at Pasoroean, Java, and in the 

 insectary at Washington by Pergande from Tetraneura colo- 

 phoidea, November 7, 1897, from Cabin Johns Bridge, Mary- 

 land. The species seems, therefore, to be not only a very gen- 

 eral parasite of Aphididae, but also seems to be of wide distri- 

 bution. 



Aphelinus mail was at once set off from the other species 



