69 



Recently a well-known entomologist sent to Professor Riley specimens of the common 

 Pteromalus puparum with the record " Reared from the cells of a mud- wasp." From what 

 we know of the habits of this parasite we may take it for granted that had the entomolo- 

 gist in question examined the cells of his mud- wasp he would have found specimens of 

 some lepidopterous larva or pupa stored up as food for the young of the wasp and that 

 from these stored-up insects the parasite had emerged. 



Within the last few weeks specimens of a Chalcidid were received from a most care- 

 ful observer and excellent collector, with the statement that they were reared from the eggs 

 of a saw-fly deposited in a willow leaf. While I am not in the habit of discrediting any 

 statement which this gentleman makes, and while I have learned by experience that his 

 accuracy is something astonishing in this world of error, the fact remains that this parasite 

 is plainly from the known habits of its near relatives an enemy of some lepidopterous or 

 dipterous leaf miner, and that never under any circumstances would it have been an egg 

 parasite. He had probably put his willow leaf in a pill box and had later found the 

 parasites in the box. He did not examine the leaf carefully for traces of a leaf miner or 

 he would never have sent in the record. 



Where the parasite is reared from a gall or from a twig burrowed by some other insect 

 it often happens that it is assumed to be parasitic upon the gall maker or upon the 

 most abundant iwig borer. Such an assumption should never be made without a complete 

 statement of the facts and without the most careful examination of gall and twig, to see 

 whether they were not inhabited by other insects either as inquilines or parasites, or in 

 the case of twigs as perhaps unnoticed borers. 



Instances like these might be multiplied, but this will sufiice to indicate the absolute 

 necessity, first, of extreme care in forming conclusions, second, of detailing all circum- 

 stances which may possibly have led to error. It is only by such careful work as this 

 that we can ever arrive at proper conclusions concerning the group habits of parasites. 

 Our present published records are full of errors and require a most careful sifting of 

 evidence, which in many instances can no longer be obtained. The most heterogeneous 

 and unlikely errors in many genera are published, and the discriminating work is of 

 extremely slow accomplishment. 



Mr. Fletcher stated that he had seen an Ichneumon ovipositing upon a glume of 

 wheat upon which there was no insect. 



Mr. Doran stated that he had reared a parasite from Bnichus sciUellaris. 



Mr. Howard stated that this parasite was probably an undescribed species of Mr. 

 Ashmead's genus Bruchophagus. 



REPORT OF A TRIP TO KANSAS TO INVESTIGATE REPORTED DAM- 

 AGES FROM GRASSHOPPERS. 



BY HERBERT OSBORN, AMES, IOWA. 



In accordance with instructions received July 24, to visit and report on grasshopper 

 injury in western Kansas I started the following morning for Kansas and improved every 

 opportunity on the way to learn of grasshopper injury. The following account is in ad- 

 vance of a report prepared for Dr. Riley. At Des Moines, where I waited a few hours 

 for the Kansas City train, I went through a large number of Kansas papers, kindly 

 placed at my service in the office of the State Register and Iowa Homestead, without, 

 however, getting any information except assertions in some places that there were no 

 hoppers in Kansas. 



From a gentleman lately through Arizona, I learned of the appearance of consider- 

 able numbers in that Territory, and the expectation that these might be travelling east- 



