J. T. Wadsworth 159 



which emerged July 26th, 1914. The host's pupaiiuni was jet black 

 and readily distinguishable from the brown unparasitised pupae. 



2. Atractodes tenebricosus. This species has been recorded from a 

 great number of localities in Great Britain and Ireland ; it is probably 

 ubiquitous. Morley (loc. cit. p. 247) remarks that he can find no record 

 of its parasitism. From 506 puparia only two specimens were obtained. 

 One female emerged at the end of March, 1914, and one male on May 2nd, 

 1914. 



3. Cothonaspis rapae was obtained in abundance from puparia of 

 C. brassicae. This Cynipid was first recorded and described by West- 

 wood (Mag. of Nat. Hist. vol. viii. 1835, pp. 171-9) from some examples 

 sent to him for identification; they were obtained from turnips on 

 which dipterous larvae were feeding. Westwood, however, believed 

 that the Cynipid larvae also fed on the turnips and that the Cynipid 

 and the dipteron had no further association with each other. In the 

 light of our present knowledge we now know that Westwood's supposi- 

 tion was based on insufficient data; so few Cynipids, however, were 

 then known to be parasitic that his mistake was quite excusable. Con- 

 cerning this species Cameron (Monog. Brit. Phyt. Hymenopt. vol. in. 

 p. 210) remarks, "bred by Westwood from the tumours on turnips 

 formed by Ocyptera brassicaria." There is no mention made of Ocyptera 

 in Westwood's article quoted previously, and I have not attempted 

 to trace the source of Cameron's statement 1 , but there appears to be 

 some mistake with regard to it, as the Ocypteridae are parasitic diptera 

 attacking, so far as known, Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Coleoptera, and 

 Lepidoptera (Townsend, C. H. T., Insect Life, vol. vi. 1894, p. 201). 

 It is therefore very improbable that Ocyptera brassicaria could form 

 tumours or galls on turnips. The cabbage- root maggot, however, attacks 

 turnips as well as members of the cabbage family, and I believe the 

 specimens described by Westwood probably emerged from the dipterous 

 puparia whose larvae had been feeding on the turnips. The statement 

 of the observer who sent the insects for identification, that the larvae 

 found feeding on the turnips were "exactly like those in the knobs of 

 cabbages," lends support to the above explanation. Westwood figures 

 a pupa obtained from one of the larvae and, so far as one may judge, 

 it was a pupa of Chortophila brassicae. As the Eucoilinae are recorded 

 as attacking Tachinidae, the possibility of C. rapae having been bred 

 from 0. brassicaria is, however, not excluded. There are at least two 



1 Probably specimens so labelled were among Westwood's 1833 types, when these 

 were examined by Cameron in 1888 (cf. Ent. Mo. Mag. xxiv. p. 209). — Claude Morley. 



