1912] Girault — A New MeliUobia from Queensland, Australia 205 



antennal flagellum, however, greyish black; venation greyish 

 brown, the fore wings uniformly, rather lightly, fumated through- 

 out. Differing from the female in the following characters: the 

 fore wings are perfect but very small and the stigmal vein is 

 absent; the posterior wdngs are reduced in proportion. The tibial 

 spur is lengthened, especially on the caudal legs; the antennae are 

 more compact, the scape enormously enlarged, but the appendage 

 is 9-jointed if a ring-joint is present, which I doubt; the pedicel 

 is short and attached to the inner side of the scooplike portion of 

 the scape and is wider than long; all funicle joints wider than 

 long, the first short, transverse, not a third of the length of either 

 the second or third, which are subequal and large; club as in the 

 female, but it is somewhat more compact and the terminal spur 

 is just traceable as a nipple-Hke projection from the apex. Body 

 subhispid, the pubescence especially noticeable over the whole 

 abdomen and on the antennal scape; sulci on flagellum reduced 

 and present on the club joints only. Fore wing bearing about 

 eight lines of discal ciliation; its marginal cilia are short. 



Described from three males and ten females received for iden- 

 tificaton from Mr. Henry Tryon, Government Entomologist and 

 Vegetable Pathologist, Department of Agriculture and Stock, 

 Brisbane, mounted in balsam on two slides labelled, "Host, 

 Pison spinolce (Hym.) Mt. Tambourine, S. Queensland, Dept. 

 Ag. &S., 11; 12; 11." 



Types: No. Hy. 997, Queensland Museum, Brisbane, two 

 males, seven females on a single slide in balsam. Coiypes — One 

 male, three females on a single balsam slide deposited in the col- 

 lection of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, Brisbane. 



Mr. Tryon informs me that the parasites emerged from the 

 host in its cocoon but not until after it had transformed into the 

 adult; the latter died. A number of the parasitic larvae make 

 their way out from each Pison and pupate nakedly. 



This Melittobia, the first known from Australia, differs from 

 a North American species as yet not identified but which is par- 

 asitic on the larva of Sceliphorn cementarium, the common mud 

 dauber of the United States, in a number of specific characters, 

 all distinct but none marked. The shape of the antennal joints 

 differs, the coloration and the pubescence or ciliation of the wings. 

 I could not discover a ring-joint in the male of the American 

 species either and have reason to think it is absent. 



