580 BIOLOGY OF CHALCIDID.E HOWARD. 



siiiffularis in the mine of LithocoUetisliamadryadella ouoak leaves,wbich 

 1 have described in the American Naturalist for January, 1881. In this 

 case thechalcidid pupa is surrounded by small excremental jjillars ar-. 

 ranged in an ellipseand connecting the roof and floor of the mine. It can 

 not be stated whether the pillars are formed of regurgitated matter or of 

 anal excrement, although the former hypothesis seems to be more pro- 

 bable. It is likely that such arrangements as this will be found fre- 

 quently when the parasites of leaf-miners are carefully studied. 



The internal parasites of externally-feeding larv^ also transform to 

 outside pupa} in a fevv instances, as with the eulophine genera Gratote- 

 clius and Symineziis, and probably with other genera of this subfamily. 

 These forms are common parasites of several large lepidopterous larva3 

 which feed on the leaves of oak in the United States. The liost-larva 

 affords food for a number of the parasitic larvae and is almost entirely 

 consumed by them. When ready to transform the parasitic larva' crawl 

 out upon the leaf, void their excrement and change to shapeless dark- 

 colored pu[)a', uearlj' erect in position, the anal i)ortion of the body being 

 attached to the leaf by means of a small mass of light-colored excre- 

 mental pellets. They seem preferably to station themselves in the form 

 of an irregular ellipse about the remains of the host larva, each group 

 consisting of from flfteeu to forty individuals. 



Scudder, in his "Butterflies of Xew England" (p. 455), gives a happy 

 picture of the appearance of the pupai of an uudescribed species para- 

 sitic on the larva of Vanessa atalania, in the following words ; " * * * And 

 still another [parasite], a species of Eulophus, the coal-black chrysalides 

 of which one may sometimes find to the number of twenty or more, stand- 

 ing erect on their hinder ends around the corpse they have destroyed, 

 like tombstones in a cemetery, a most melancholy spectacle on opening a 

 nest to get a young caterpillar." In correspondence with me Mr. Scud- 

 der has always referred to them as "my tombstone pupje," and the term 

 is an admirably descriptive one. 



The chalcidid larva? which feed externally on outside-feeding larvae, 

 and we know only one genus in which this habit uniformly prevails, spin 

 a coarse rough silk, attaching the depleted skin of the host-insect to the 

 leaf on which it had been feeding, and transform to pupje, side by side, 

 in a regular transverse row in the silky mass. Frequently the host larva 

 has supported so many parasitic larvte that their web attaches the entire 

 shriveled skin from end to end ; but, again, they do not occur in sufticient 

 numbers to accom[)lish this result, and only half of the skin is thus fas- 

 tened (Schwarz states that with thecotton worm and Comstock's Uuplect- 

 rus it is usually the anterior portion), and the remaining portion hangs 

 down, is doubled back, and breaks off'. 



The larvas of the closely allied genus Elachisins pupate externally, but 

 do not spin the loose silk characteristic of Uiiplcctrns. I have seen the 

 naked i)U[)a^ of EInchishis eaccecicv nUnchvAl by their anal end to the silk 

 !?puu in its leaf-roll hy the lavva of CJacaeoia romceana, while the pup<3e 



