174 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



bo parasitized, as well as galls and fungi, it may be possible to any person 

 to add largely to our scanty knowledge. 



As regards the best time to capture the mature insects in the field, 

 although a few forms occur in spring, it is not until midsummer that 

 they become numerous. My records show that the most specimens are 

 obtained in August and the first week of September, but probably both 

 before and after this period they may be much more abundant than my 

 dates indicate. During July my official duties prevent me annually from 

 collecting, and frequently I have been absent during a portion of Sep- 

 tember, thus making the record for that month incomplete. Even in the 

 early part of October, if fine weather prevails, a considerable number of 

 forms are still abroad, and later still specimens can be obtained by collect- 

 ing moss and débris and sifting them out. I have obtained representatives 

 of at least thirty sjDecies from moss collected in swamps, usually lute in 

 November and even after the ground was covered with snow. These are 

 chiefly apterous forms, especially of the ceraphronids and scelionids, and 

 always females, many of which doubtless thus pass the winter, for, though 

 I have never obtained moss in the early spring, the insects remained alive 

 so long as the moss was kept in a suitable condition, not being allowed to 

 become dry or to be exposed to too low a temperature. It is probable 

 that the summer forms of many of these apterous individuals will bo 

 winged in both sexes. 



When our species shall have been more fully studied, it is inevitable 

 that numerous synonyms will be found, arising from such difterences in 

 the development of the wings and other structural variations, as well as 

 from the difficulty of correlating the sexes of many species until they 

 shall have been reared together. Certain species have been created on 

 differences, apparently distinctive, between a few individuals, but which 

 in a larger series of specimens will be found to be merely individual 

 variations, merging imperceptibly to a common central type. On tlie 

 other hand, some individuals now grouped together, especially when of 

 opposite sexes, will prove to be distinct species, so that the total number 

 at present recognized will not probably be much changed, and it will 

 always be increasing by the addition of new species from our vast and as 

 yet almost unexploited territories. 



PROCTOTKYPIDJE. 



Subfamily I.— BETlIYLINiE. 



ISOBR.MIIIUM MYRMECOPniLU.M. 



Isobrachium myrmecophilum, Aslmiead, Monog. X. A. Proctotrj'pida^ p. 37. 

 One $ taken with the sweeping-net in a small swamp on the old 

 racecourse, Ottawa, 24th August. 



