NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 93 



insects were taken, the mode being very different to that by 

 which I took the two specimens last summer ; one of those was 

 taken on the wing, and the other by sweeping, but both within 

 a few yards of the locality of this year's specimens, which 

 were captured in the following manner : — I was cutting tufts 

 of grass and shaking them over paper for Coleoptera, when 

 to my surprise out fell Ichneumon crythrceus, Gr. This, to me, 

 was the more remarkable, as the little tufts of grass were 

 growing upon the small mounds of earth raised by Formica flava 

 (the small yellow ant). Every piece I cut brought up numbers of 

 the little worker : with these exceptions, there was no other insect 

 to be seen, and although there were numbers of isolated tufts 

 growing around, many of which I cut, I in no case found a single 

 specimen of I. erythrceus, unless the grass was cut off a hillock of 

 Formica flava. Mr. Fitch informs me that there are only two old 

 Stephensian specimens of this insect in the collection at the 

 British Museum, and I believe that nothing whatever is known of 

 its habits or economy ; so meeting with this insect under what I 

 think peculiar circumstances may only be accidental ; but if it 

 will assist in solving the mystery of its economy, or will help 

 hymenopterists to trace out its habits, my note may not be in 

 vain. — T. R. Billups ; 20, Swiss Villas, Coplestone Road, 

 Peckham. 



Economy of Chalcidid.e. — In the 'American Naturalist' for 

 January and February, 1881 (vol. xvi., pp. 60 and 149), Mr. L. O. 

 Howard gives some interesting notes " On some Curious Methods 

 of Pupation among the ChalcididcB." He mentions the economy 

 of one of the Elachistidce {Euplectrus albitrophis MS) which 

 economises the empty larva- skin of the Tortricid host {Phox- 

 opteris divisana, Walk.) into a tent for its separately clustered 

 pupse. Then the curious pillars supporting the walls of an oak- 

 leaf Lithocolletis-mine, as a protection to the single loose pupa of 

 a Chrysocharis — one of the Entedonidce. He next alludes to the 

 curious assemblage of black coarctate Eidophus pupae found upon 

 a leaf; these at first sight were taken for the excrement of some 

 lepidopterous larva, and the hairs of the bombycid larval host 

 were taken to be sporidia of some fungus thereon. Last year 

 Mr. Billups gave me similar pupfe of the common Eidophus 

 ramicornis bred from Demas coryli and Notodonta camelina, and 

 I believe he made some interesting notes on their economy. 



