British Braconidcp. l77 



difficilis, Nees. Two or three of the cocoons are acci- 

 dentally more yellow than usual. 



A. glomeratus is the well-known parasite of all the 

 species of Pieris. Bignell has also obtained it from 

 Abraxas r/rossidariata, L. ; the specimens from the moth 

 are absolutely the same. The sulphur-yellow cocoons of 

 the gregarious maggots may be found plentifully near 

 cabbage-gardens. They are irregularly heaped together, 

 without a common covering, but merely connected by a 

 slight web. As in the case of congestus, Nees, No. 7, it 

 has been asserted that this web is constructed by the 

 dying caterpillar of the butterfly. That this is not the 

 fact I can testify, from having watched the operations of 

 these parasites. The P/cr/s-larva was perfectly inert 

 and moribund. Curtis counted as many as 67 Micro- 

 gasters which issued from the body of a single caterpillar 

 of P. hrassicce, L. ; Bignell counted 142 cocoons from a 

 similar larva (Entom., xvi., 263). They usually come out 

 in September and spin their cocoons, in which they pass 

 the winter. In the following May they hatch, and are ready 

 to attack the spring-broods of butterflies. Giraud and 

 Brischke have obtained this species also from Ai^oria 

 cratcegi, L. ; and the latter (as he states) from Smerinthus 

 populi, L., Zygana ephialtes, L., n:n(\.Bemhecia hylceiformis, 

 Lasp. Miss Pasley, of Windermere (E. M. M., i., 281), 

 records the singular fact that an imago of Pieris rapce, L,, 

 emerged from the pupa with two of the yellow cocoons 

 of this parasite, containing pupse, rolled up in the wings. 

 Bouche (Naturg., 168, No. 61) has described one of the 

 Chalcidiche, which he calls Diplolepis microgastri, living 

 parasitically in the cocoons of glomeratus, 3 or 4 together : 

 the cocoons so infested are paler than healthy ones. 

 Hemiteles fulvipes, Gr., is also a hyj)er-parasite, frequently 

 taking the place of the entire brood. 



15. Apanteles sericeiis, Nees. 

 Microgaster sericeiis, Nees, Mon., i., 184, <? ? . 

 M. p)rcBpotens, Hal., Ent. Mag., ii., 252, ? . 

 M. brevicornis, Wesm., Nouv. Mem. Ac. Brux., 1837, 



p. 50, ? ; Apanteles brevicornis, Eeinh., Berl. ent. 



Zeit., 1881, p. 34, c? ? . 

 M. fuliginosus, Eatz., Ichn. d. Forst., iii., 56, partly 



(not of Wesm.). 

 Deep black ; mandibles tipped with rufous, palpi pale ; fore 

 femora, apex of the intermediate femora narrowly, and all the 

 TEANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1885. PART I. (APRIL.) N 



