8 Pipunculidae. 



lower plate in Pipunculus^. As mentioned under VerraUia I have 

 examined a pupa of V. aiicta, which was opened in the same way as 

 in Chalariis, only that the upper piece here remained well connected 

 with the puparium (perhaps accidentally, though there was no sign 

 of any rupture), also here the anterior spiracular tubes were found on 

 the pupal skin. The suture dividing the lower and the median plate in 

 Chalarus is also indicated in Pipunculus, but is not ruptured, and de 

 Meijere thinks it possible that it is not always ruptured in Chalarus; 

 this is perhaps also the case, I have seen only two complete puparia of 

 Chalarus, and here the median piece remained attached to the lower 

 piece but the suture was distinct, the lateral pieces were separated. 

 On the other hånd it is possible that in Pipunculus a rupture some- 

 times may take place in the same way as in Chalarus, along the indic- 

 ated suture between the lower and the median plate, as mentioned 

 by Scott (Ent. Month. Mag. 2, XIX, 1908, 10, fig. 1), though the 

 separation of the two piates here only later on occurred. 



The larvæ are well known to be parasitic in Homoptera; as men- 

 tioned under Pipunculus Perkins has bred a large number of Australian 

 and Hawaiian species; of European species only P. juscipes has been 

 bred from Thamnotettix virescens, and Chalarus spurius from species 

 of Typhlocyba; f urther some larvæ coming from Homoptera have been 

 noted but not bred, and some species have been bred from pupæ 

 found on the ground; VerraUia aucta has been watched chasing and 

 attacking frog-hoppers. Only as to Nephrocerus nothing seems to be 

 known, but no doubt also this genus is parasitic on Homoptera, and 

 Verrall remarks, that the English Nephrocerus occurs exactly in the 

 same district as the one English, very large Cicada. The egg-deposition 

 has not been observed, but after the observation of VerraUia aucta 

 made by Jenkinson, there can be little doubt, that the females sting 

 the host with the ovipositor and thus deposite the egg; the larva 

 then lives in the abdomen of the host, when full-grown nearly filling 

 it; at time for pupation it quits the host by rupturing the abdomen 

 from thorax in one side, or rarely through a hole on the dorsal side 

 of abdomen, and then it goes to the ground and hibernates here as 

 pupa beneath the soil or beneath rubbish; rarely the pupa is found 

 fixed on a leaf. 



The Pipunculidae are a very characteristic family; the species 



1 In de Meijere's figures 141 and 142 the letters Di and Ds, indicating the 

 small lateral piates, are wrongly appended to the lower instead of to the 

 upper plate. 



