36 Forty-first Report on the State Museum. 



Fimpla lunator Gade: in Bull. Brook. Ent. Soc, vii, 1884, pp. 103-4 (sexual 

 attraction and oviposition) ; in Science, 1884, No. 92, p. v. 



Thalessa "_ Lintner : in Count. Gent., xlix, 1884, p. 331 (general notice). 



Bhysi^a " Smith : in Bull. Brook. Entomolog. Soc, vii, 1884, p. 125 

 (remarks on oviposition). 



The singular appearance presented by this large Ichneumon fly, in 

 its long extended ovipositor and lateral guides proceeding from the 

 end of its abdomen, looking, particularly when in flight, as if some 

 thread or other fibre had become accidentally fastened to it, never 

 fails to excite curiosity, and often is the occasion of its being brought 

 to the entomologist as a supposed rare insect. 



It is a common insect in the State of New York, and in other of the 

 northern states, and extends over a large portion of the United States. 

 A living examjDle of it was received from Augusta, Georgia, taken 

 on April 1, with its ovipositor inserted in a shade tree, from which it 

 could with difficulty be drawn. Numbers of it had been noticed the 

 preceding year, when they occurred somewhat later, and continued 

 for about ten days or two weeks. The date of the caj^ture of the 

 specimen would seem to be an unusually early one, even for the 

 southern states, and the present record is therefore made of it. 



It is not unusual to meet with this insect fastened by its ovipositor 



to the tree so firmly that it is not able 

 to disengage itself. Numbers of dead 

 individuals have been seen suspended 

 in this manner from a single tree. 

 The insect has occasionally been met 

 with while engaged in ovipositing, in 

 remarkable abundance. In one in- 

 stance recorded, " the bark of a large 

 tree from which the top had been bro- 

 ken, was dotted all over with lunators, 

 often massed in rows or patches, so 

 that there must have been several 

 hundreds present." A few males 



(usuall}' quite rare) were among the 

 Fig. 15.— Thalessa LUNATOE — male. i -r^. -■ r- • • t«. 



number. J^ igure 15, is an inditterent 



representation of the male, but it will serve to show the long and 



slender form of the abdomen, which is flattened above, and black, Avith- 



out the yellow bands that characterize the female. 



