﻿GENERAL REMARKS ON THE STYLOPIDAE. 



The Stylopidae or Strepsiptera are minute insects of grear 

 interest on account of their anomalous structure and their 

 remarkable parasitic habits. Even now, though they are com- 

 mon insects, their structures have been very imperfectly exam- 

 ined, and the most diverse opinions have been expressd as tc- 

 their natural atihnities. Sir Sydney Saunders, who monograph- 

 ed the group in 1872, divided them into two groups on account 

 of their habits, viz: the Hymenopterobiae parasitic on bees, 

 wasps, and ants, and Homopterobiae parasitic on Homoptera. 

 The latter group was made to contain Westwood's genus 

 Colaciiia, parasitic on a leaf-hopper from Borneo, and I believe 

 never yet characterized. Since that time, Mr. Edward Saunders, 

 in 1892, discovered the long known genus Elencliiis, the host 

 of which had been the subject of various erroneous conjectures, 

 to be parasitic on a small leaf-hopper of the genus Libnrnia. 

 Two years ago Mr. Koebele bred this same insect in quantities 

 from Libnrnia in the State of Ohio, and subsequently in Cal- 

 ifornia, while in Australia we found the same to be very com- 

 mon in every locality which we investigated, and to attack not 

 only Liburnia, but several other genera of Delphacid leaf-hop- 

 pers. Finally, Mr. Koebele, after my return to Hawaii, when 

 he proceeded to Fiji, at once discovered Elciichus there in num- 

 bers, attacking various Delphacids, and we had previously found 

 the females and male puparia in leaf-hoppers sent from those 

 islands for our inspection. Otherwise outside Europe, a species 

 of this genus had been collected in numbers in Mauritius by 

 Templeton some seventy years ago. Nor is it only the Homop- 

 terous Rhynchota that are attacked, for Sharp has recorded a 

 case of a Stylopid attacking a Pentatomid bug of the genus CJvry- 

 socoris from East Asia, and I had the pleasure of examining 

 this interesting specimen, when I was last in Cambridge. We 

 failed to find any Australian Pentatomid stylopized, though we 

 examined considerable numbers, but as owing to pressure of 

 other matters we were unable to make any really extensive 

 search, it is quite probable that such will be found there. At 

 least not only are many Fulgoridae and Jassidae afifected with 

 these parasites at all points investigated, from Sydney in New 



