277 



H s. 



HYMENOPTERA PARASITICA. "'"^-.o.c. 



By William H. Ashmead. 



^ 1. General considerations. 



The Hawaiian Islands, on account of their volcanic origin and isolation from the 

 continents of Asia and America, have a most interesting, and, in some respects, peculiar 

 fauna which is well worth the closest study, although their early settlement, their close 

 commercial relationship with various nationalities and the introduction of many plants 

 and animals, not indigenous, render a study of the endemic species obscure and most 

 difficult. 



This difficulty is enhanced among the smaller insects easily transportable, especially 

 among those of parasitic habits, and more particularly among species belonging to the 

 orders Diptera and Hymenoptera, groups still very imperfectly known in temperate 

 zones and almost totally neglected in tropical regions, but which have a wide 

 geographical distribution. 



It becomes of the greatest importance, therefore, . to see that larger and more 

 thorough zoological and botanical collections of the endemic species of these Islands 

 be made before further inroads of modern civilization utterly destroy the indigenous 

 species. 



Our own government' and the authorities of the U. S. National Museum have 

 been singularly remiss in their duty in this respect, and have left the exploration of 

 these Islands, now a body politic of the United States, to others. 



The present contribution to a knowledge of the parasitic Hymenoptera of these 

 Islands is based mainly upon the explorations instituted by the Joint Committee 

 appointed by various learned societies of England and assisted by the Trustees of the 

 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum at Honolulu, Oahu, and upon the rather limited 

 material in the U. S. National Museum, collected principally by Mr Albert Koebele 

 and Mr H. W. Henshaw. 



The principal part of this material, comprising nearly looo specimens, was made 

 by Mr R. C. L. Perkins during a residence of about five years in these Islands, and 

 was transmitted to me by Dr David Sharp, Secretary of the Joint Committee. 



' That of the United States of North America. Ed. 

 A. F. H. I. 37 



