36 AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGY. 



parent, and tlie body being slender, with colored bands in some of 

 tbe species, they have much the appearance of bees and wasps ; 

 whence the names apifonnisy vespiformisj crahronifortnk, &c., 

 which have been applied in this genus. Degeer, in his history 

 of one of the species, observes, " the first time that I saw it, I 

 hesitated to take it with my naked hand, believing I had found a 

 wasp/' 



j^GERiA EXiTiosA. — Desc. Male. Body steel-blue ; antennae 

 ciliated on the inner side, black, with a tinge of blue ; palpi be- 

 neath, yellow J head with a band at base, both above and beneath, 

 pale yellow ; eyes black-brown ; thorax with two pale yellow lon- 

 gitudinal lines, and a transverse one behind, interrupted above, 

 and a spot of the same color, beneath the origin of the wings j 

 wings hyaline, nervures and margin steel-blue, which is more di- 

 lated on the costal margin, and on the anastomosing band of the 

 superior wings ; feet steel blue, the coxae, two bands on the tibiae 

 including the spines, incisures of the posterior tarsi, and anterior 

 tarsi behind, pale yellow ; abdomen with two very narrow pale 

 yellow bands, one of which is near the base, and the other on the 

 middle ; tail fringed, the fringe margined with white each side. 



Female. Body very dark steel-blue, with a tinge of purple ; 

 antennae destitute of cilise ; palpi beneath, black ; thorax imma- 

 culate ; superior wings steel-blue, without any hyaline spot ,• in- 

 ferior wings hyaline, with an opaque margin and longitudinal 

 line ; the latter and the costal margin are dilated ; tergum with 

 the fifth segment bright reddish-fulvous. 



Pupa with two semifasciae of spines upon each of the seg- 

 ments, excepting the three terminal ones, which have a single 

 row only. 



Follicle brown, oblong-oval, composed of small pieces of bark 

 and earth, closely connected together by the web of the animal. 



jEgeria exitiosa nobis, Journ. Acad. Nat., Sci, vol. iii. p. 216. 



Ohs. This insect has been for years the cause of great solicitude 

 and regret to all the lovers of fine fruit. Our readers will ac- 

 knowledge the fact, when we inform them, that small as it is, it 

 is no other than the silent, insidious destroyer of the peach-tree. 



The sexes are so remarkably difierent from each other, that we 

 should hesitate in yielding our assent to their specific unity, if 

 we were not apprised of the circumstance, that the sexes of many 



