PARASITES OF THE EGGS. 131 
grammid, and two chalcidids. The excepted species, however, has 
been reported as occurring in enormous numbers, and warrants a 
more careful account. 
Attention seems to have been first called to this parasite by Mr. 
William T. Hartman in a letter dated October 5, 1868, to Doctor 
Walsh. In this Mr. Hartman states that in getting some twigs, from 
Fic. 55.—Burrows of Sphecius speciosus: e, e, ¢, main entrance; c, c, c, c, chambers for larve and their 
food. Greatly reduced (after Riley). 
which he hoped to obtain the larve of the Cicada, from an oak which 
had been very thickly oviposited in, he found, after leaving the tree, 
that his head and clothes were covered with what seemed to be small 
red flies. The branches secured were kept in his office for several days 
and the little red flies appeared again in 
(7 countless numbers. The examination of 
these flies under a microscope showed that 
they were minute Hymenoptera instead 
of Diptera, as he first supposed. He ob- 
tained very few larve of the Cicada from 
these shoots, and consequently inferred 
that practically all of the eggs had been 
parasitized by this insect. He states also 
that a neighbor of his trapped thousands 
of them in the soft paint which had been 
newly applied to his window shutters, and 
that by the middle of August this minute 
parasite was ‘‘everywhere in force.” 
What is probably the same insect (fig. 
yA 53) was reared in some egg-infested twigs 
Fig. 56.—Adult Cicada with Sphecius Collected by Mr. T. Pergande in Virginia 
ee tacts ata. Naturalsize(aé in July, 1885. Doctor Howard has exam- 
ined these specimens, and pronounces them 
to be a new species of a European genus not hitherto recorded from 
this continent, and has described them under the name Lathromeris 
cicadx.* The life cycle of this minute parasite is evidently so short 
that it is possible for it to pass through two or three generations 
@Oanadian Entom., vol. 30, April, 1898, pp. 102, 103. 
