122 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



April 6 took ii in 2 hours. 

 '' II & 12 — heavy snow storm. 

 " 14 took 5 in I hour. 

 " 17 " I " I " 

 The larvse are doing well in the breeding cage, and at some future 

 time I shall be glad to submit my observations as to habits while in cap- 

 tivity. Meanwhile am pleased to contribute the above facts. 



W. H. Danby, 57 Government Street, Victoria, B. C. 



ARGIOPE RIPARIA AND ITS PARASITE ICHNEUMON ARA- 

 NEARUM, AND ITS PARASITE A CHALCID FLY. 



BY FREDERICK CLARKSON, NEW YORK. 



The nests of Argiope riparia were unusually abundant last autumn in 

 the neighborhood of this city. During the preceding summer this gayly 

 colored, but atrocious looking spider, could be seen stationed in the cen- 

 tre of its well formed geometric web on nearly all of the low shrubbery 

 in the uncultivated portion of Central Park. Merciless to every insect 

 caught in her web, her household is nevertheless oftentimes greatly 

 reduced, if not altogether destroyed by Ichneumon araneartan, a fearless 

 and victorious enemy. Among a large number of nests collected last 

 autumn, those obtained in the latter part of September and as late as the 

 loth of October contained ova : a single cocoon possessing by actual 

 count 1,277 eggs ; those found later in October, and as late as November 

 3rd, contained young spiders. Only a few of those collected in October 

 had suffered parasitic attack, but the greater number of such as were 

 gathered later in the autumn, contained the larvse o{ Ichneumon aranearum 

 feeding upon the spiders, or else spun up in their cocoons sometimes to 

 the number of forty. May we not infer from these facts that the parasite 

 deposits her eggs in the nest of Argiope after the eggs of the latter have 

 hatched, or at least, whatever may be the time of depositure, the larva of the 

 parasite feeds upon the spiders ? 



In examining the cocoons of this Ichneumon an interesting exhibit of 



secondary parasitism was revealed. In several of the nests of Argiope 



containing each some thirty cocoons of the Ichneumon, I found that each 



larval inhabitant was being devoured by from eight to ten larvae of a 



Chalcid fly. 



'• Great fleas and little fleas have smaller fleas to bite 'em, 

 The smaller fleas have lesser fleas, so on ad infinitum." 



