STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. I05 



Curculio larva is drilling its way through the fruit. When she has once 

 ascertained the presence of such a larva by aid of her antenncC — which she 

 deftly applies to different parts of the fruit, and which doubtless possess 

 some occult and delicate sense of perception which, with our compara- 

 tively dull senses, we are unable to comprehend — then she pierces the 

 fruit, and with unerring precision, deposits a single egg in her victim, by 

 means of her ovipositor. 



Now there is, as I shall show in the description, a variety- (/usca) of 

 this parasite with the ovipositor nearly one-fifth of an inch long, but in 

 the normal form the ovipositor is only twelve-hundreths of an inch long, 

 and the Curculio larva must therefore be reached soon after it hatches or 

 while yet very young. Consequently we find that the earliest Curculio 

 larvae, or those which hatch while the fruit is yet small, are the most sub- , 

 ject to be parasitised, and while from larva obtained early in the season, 

 I bred more parasites than Curculios, this order of things was reversed a 

 little later in the year. Some persons will no doubt wonder how such a 

 large fly can be developed from a Curculio larva which is stung while so 

 young; but we do not know how long the parasitic egg remains un- 

 hatclied, and it must be remembered that it is a rule, wisely ordained and 

 long known to exist in insect life, that the parasitic larva does not 

 at first kill outright, but subsists, without retarding growth, upon the 

 fatty portions of its victim, until its own growth is attained. Thus the 

 first worm derives its nourishment from the jucy fruit, and grows on 

 regardless of the parasite which is consuming its adipose substance, until 

 the latter is sufficiently developed, and the appointed time arrives for it to 

 destroy its prey by attacking those parts more vital. 



This parasite which I will now proceed to describe, belongs to the second 

 sub-family [Braconides) of the Ichneumon-flics {Ichncumonidcc)^ and 

 the venation of its wings, and 3-jointed abdomen place it in the genus 

 Sigalphus. Westwood (Synopsis p. 63) gives three cubital panes or 

 areolets in the front wung as characteristic of the genus; but Brulle 

 (p. ^10) and, as Mr. Cresson informs me, Westmael in his Braconides 

 de Belgique give only two, which is the number in our insect. 



Sigalphus curculionis, Fitch — Imago — (Fig. 4, a male; h female) Head 

 black, sub-polished and sparsely covered on the face with short whitish hairs; 

 ocelli touching each other; labrum and jaws brown; palpi pale yellow: antenn£e 

 (Fig. 4, r) 27-jointed, filiform, reaching when turned back to middle joint of abdo- 

 men or beyond, the bulbus and small second joint rufous and glabrous, the rest 

 black or dark brown though 3-10 in many specimens are more or less tinged with 

 rufous; 3-14 verv gradually diminishing in size; 14-27 sub-equal. Thorax black, 

 polished, the metathorax distinctly and broadly punctate and the rest more or less 

 distinctly punctate or rugose, with the sides sparsely pubescent. Abdomen 'f\'ic\\y- 

 black, flattened, the dorsum convex, the venter concave, and the sides narrow- 

 edged and slightly carinated; the three joints distinctly separated and of about 

 equal length; the first joint having two dorsal longitudinal carina; down the middle; 

 all denseiv marked with very fine longitudinal impressed lines, and sparsely pubes- 

 cent: (Dr. Fitch in his description published in the Country Gentleman, under 

 date of September 1859, states that these lines leave ''a smooth stripe along the 

 middle of its second segment and a large smooth space on the base of the third :" 

 ■which is true of a few specimens, but not of the majority, in which the impressed 



