THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 11 



from a fact which I published in 18G6 (Pract. Entom. I. p. 120), namely, 

 that this very same Imported Saw-fly is preyed upon by another indigenous 

 Ichneumon-fly, the Brachypterus \_Cryptus~] mlcropterus of Say, which was 

 described in 1836, or twenty years before the Saw-fly, which it now infests, 

 had crossed the Atlantic. But on a question such as this, which is not only 

 of great scientific interest, but of high practical importance, it is as well to 

 make assurance doubly sure. 



It may be remarked here that — as we shall have occasion to state also in a 

 forthcoming illustrated Paper on " Currant and Gooseberry Worms" in the 

 American Entomologist — we have recently heard from Mr. Win. Saunders, 

 of London, Ontario, that Nematus ventricosus very commonly with him spins 

 up above ground on the bushes, as in the case referred to above. This fact 

 is of especial interest, because it has not hitherto been observed in the States, 

 and because European authors noticed it long ago as the habit of this same 

 species on the other side of the Atlantic. Indeed Dahlbom was absurd 

 enough to manufacture two species out of this one — although as he says him- 

 self the perfect insects are as like each other as one egg is like another egg — 

 basing his specific distinction solely upon this slight difference in the habits 

 of his two so-called species. To be consistent, he ought to have ground out 

 a third species from those individuals that spin up, not under the earth, but 

 on the surface of the earth. (See on this subject Pract. Entom. I. p. 125.) 



Hemiteles Nemativorus, n. sp. — 9 Rufous and almost microscopically punc- 

 tate and subopaque. Head with the ocelli, and sometimes the space enclosed by 

 them, black. Antennae with joints 3 and 4 equal in length, and each four times 

 as long as wide, joint 5 a trifle shorter than 4, joint 6 and the following gradually 

 shorter and shorter; brown-black, their basal i or f rufous beneath with the in- 

 cisures brown-black. Thorax with the parapsidal grooves obsolete, and the nor- 

 mal metathoracic carinas strongly and fully developed. The suture at the base of 

 the scutel, a narrow vitta on each side of the mesonotum abbreviated more or less 

 in front or sometimes entirely absent, the extreme tip of the methathorax and 

 more or less of its basal part, or sometimes the entire metathorax except a lateral 

 rufous spot at tip, all brown-black. Abdomen with joint 1 two and a half times 

 as long as wide, and fully twice as wide at tip as at base ; joints 2-8 forming a 

 depressed oval mass 2^ or 2$ times as long as wide and expanding in its middle to 

 nearly twice the extreme width of joint 1. Joint 1, 2, and usually the base of 

 3, rufous, joint 1 sometimes clouded with brown-black, and in the Canada 9 en- 

 tirely brown-black ; the rest of the abdomen brown-black. Sheaths of the 

 oripositor brown-black, projecting from the tip of the abdomen by nearly half its 

 length. Legs dull rufous. The 4 front legs, with the femora superiorly and the 

 tibiae exteriorly, and the entire tarsi, all brown — black, the dark color most ex- 

 tensive in the Canada 9 • Hind legs with the tip, and in the Canada 9 the 

 whole, of the femur, the entire tibiae except their basal, \ which is whitish, and 

 also the entire tarsi, all-brown black. All the coxae and trochanters sometimes, 

 especially in Canada $>> & little varied with brown-black, more so (as is usual in 

 Ichneumonidce) in each successive pair of legs. Wings hyaline; veins black ; 

 stigma twice as long as wide, triangular, black, its basal £ or ^ white. A fuscous 

 band straddling the basal cross-veins of the front wing, and a much wider fuscous 



