THE 



HYMENOPTEROUS PARASITES 



OF 



NORTH AMERICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



BY L. O. HOWARD, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Why, here you have the awf ulest of crimeB 

 For nothing ! Hell broke loose on a butterfly I 



Browning.— 7%e Ring and the Book. 



It was in March, 1887, when Mr. Scudder first wrote asking me to 

 revise and extend the chapter on butterfly parasites written by Dr. A. S. 

 Packard for his ( Scudder 's) book on New England Butterflies, but pub- 

 lished under the title "Some Ichneumon Parasites of our New England 

 Butterflies," in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 Vol. XXI. I at once replied that I should be glad to attempt the task, 

 and some little time was spent during the summer of 1887 examining Dr. 

 Packard's types and other material sent me by Mr. Scudder. Learning, 

 during a visit to Cambridge in the fall of 1887, that there was no imme- 

 diate hurry for my manuscript, I postponed the work until the summer of 

 1888, and meantime corresponded with several gentlemen interested in but- 

 terflies, and brought together some additional material, which I have 

 studied with that already at hand, and present the results herewith. 



The larger part of the material which I have seen was sent me by Mr. 

 Scudder. Some of it had already been studied by Dr. Packard, while the 

 remainder had been subsequently reared by Mr. Scudder or his correspon- 

 dents. Considerable material, both in the way of specimens and notes, 

 was also placed at my disposal by Dr. C. V. Riley, from his old collec- 

 tion and from the collections of the National Museum and of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. Mr. W. H. Edwards has sent me a number of 

 specimens with notes, and Judge W. B. Thomas of Athens, Ga., Mr. 

 A. H. Mundt of Fairbury, 111. , and Mr. H. H. Lyman of Montreal, have aU 

 sent specimens and short notes. Professor Riley has kindly written for me 

 the portion of the chapter relating to the important parasites of the Braconid 

 subfamily Microgasterinae, as I felt that from his familiarity with these 

 diflScult forms he would do them infinitely better justice than I could my- 



