THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 211 



their ensuing revels. When not too much engrossed, they display 

 the instinct shared with so many other strongly flying members of 

 their order, and, on the approach of danger, clamber to the petal's 

 edge and seek safety by dropping to the cover that lies below. 



The Caltha seems to be an unrecorded food-plant for the genus, 

 though hardly a surprising one in view of its evident adaptability 

 and its environmental association with the skunk cabbage, the 

 resort of certain others of its component species. 



So far as they have come under the writer's observation, the 

 males of D. emarginata in this neighborhood are uniformly purplish 

 or bluish-black, while the females are never like them in colour, but 

 vary through shining olivaceous green, the shade most commonl>^ 

 occurring, to brassy and rich bronze. If these colour distinctions 

 hold constant with the beetles from other localities, we have here 

 secondary sexual characters which are worthy of note. 



A NEW BRACONID OF THE GENUS MICRODUS 



FROM CANADA. 



BY C. H. RICHARDSON, JR., FOREST HILLS, MASS. 



Among a number of parasitic hymenoptera reared from the 

 Bud Moth (Tmetocera ocellana Schiff.), at the Dominion Ento- 

 mological Laboratory, Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, by Mr. G. E. 

 Sanders, there is a Braconid belonging to the genus Microdus 

 which appears to be new. Since it is desired to refer to this species 

 in the near future, Dr. Hewitt, Dominion Entomologist has asked 

 me to describe it at the present time. 



Microdus ocellance, sp. nov. 



Description of the type (female) : Length 5 mm. Wing 

 4 mm. Ovipositor about 5 mm. Head, thorax and abdomen 

 black, refulgent; palpi pale fulvous; fore and middle legs pale ful- 

 vous, with the apical joints black; hind legs pale fulvous except for 

 the black coxa, the black apical annuli on the tibiae, the darkened 

 distal ends of the first tarsal joints and the complete darkening of 

 the succeeding joints. A large fulvous spot covering the first and 

 second abdominal segments ventrally. Pubescence light. Wings 

 slightly infuscated, iridescent; stigma black. Head slightly wider 

 than thorax, less than three times as wide as thick; clypeus slightly 

 produced; clypeal foveae large, each equaling an ocellus in size; face 



July, 1913 



