422 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



CURRANT. STALKS. 



eggs the larvae of the borer will be grown to a sufficient size to meet 

 their wants. For with such forethought and skill has Omniscience 

 appointed the times and seasons of every creature, that each little 

 insect comes into existence upon the very day that its food is in 

 readiness and everything is matured for it to fulfill its allotted 

 work in the economy of nature. 



This parasite of the currant borer is a small four-winged fly 

 pertaining to the order Hymenoptera the family Ichneumonidce and 

 the sub-family Braco7ndes. It is 0.10 long, black, the first joints 

 of its antennae and its feelers and legs deep honey-yellow, its 

 rnoutli, fure-breast and the two first segments of the abdomen 

 darker yellow with a black spot on the first of these segments, 

 and with a yellowish cloud upon the middle of the third segment, 

 the under side of tlie abdomen being black-brown. Its oviposi- 

 tor resembles a small bristle and is about a third of the 

 length of the abdomen. It is probable that as this insect walks 

 up and down upon a currant stalk with its antennae applied to 

 the surface and rapidly vibrating, the sense of feeling possessed 

 by tliese organs is of such exquisite delicacy that it is able to 

 detect the very spot where a small worm is lying in the centre of ^ 

 the ?ta]k, and that it then insinuates its ovipositor through the 

 bark and wood and punctures the skin of the worm, inserting 

 therein as many eggs as the borer will be able to sustain. 



I have attached the name Cenoccelius 1 Rihis to this insect in my cabinet. 

 The prasdiscoidal cell of the fore wings occupies but two-thirds of the length 

 of the oblique vein which bounds its anterior side, the first submarginal cell 

 occupying tlie remainder of this vein, thus separating the praBdisccidal cell 

 widely from the costa. This induces me to refer this insect to the genus Ceno- 

 ccp/jus of Westwood's Synopsis, though I am by no means certain that it is 

 congeneric with the undescribed species named as the type of that genus. The 

 feelers are very slender and elongated, the maxillaries being longer than the 

 head and about equal in length to the anterior thighs. The head is nearh' as 

 long as broad and sub-globular. The antenna are slender and almost as long 

 as the body. The abdomen is obovate or nearly oval, slightly depressed, 

 equaling the thorax in length and exceeding it in width. 



It should be observed before leaving this subject, that I am 

 uncertain whether this insect is the destroyer of the American 

 or of tlie European currant borer. Though there were several of 

 the American borers in the currant stalk in which I met with 



