( xl ) 



must, it is said, be protected by the colonisation of these 

 useful little parasites. 



" This may have satisfied ' arm-chair naturalists,' who are 

 content to rely upon information gathered from other sources 

 than those of practical experience in the field, and who, like 

 ' feather-bed warriors,' copy the mistakes of others, which 

 are again copied and handed down to posterity. 



"After reading the article referred to, I determined to 

 have a field day among the barley, for the express purpose of 

 searching for the parasites of the Hessian Fly, which had not 

 at that time been recorded as occurring in Great Britain. 

 Mr. G. E. Palmer, of Eevell's Hall Farm, Hertford, very 

 kindly gave me permission to ' go anywhere I liked ' ; and the 

 description and figure given by Miss E. A. Ormerod in her 

 interesting pamphlet on ' The Hessian Fly ' rendered it an 

 easy matter to recognise the infected plants, which were very 

 plentiful, among the poorly-grown barley. 



" I had not been at work more than half an hour before I 

 discovei ad unmistakable signs that the parasites were there, for 

 in several infected stems I noticed that some had a small round 

 hole about 5 ' 2 in. in diameter, and % in. above the 2nd joint. 

 I at once came to the conclusion that these holes had been 

 made by some parasitic fly, and two days after (August 7th) 

 I bred a male, on the 10th a female of the same species, and 

 the following day another male of a different genus. Since 

 that date I have bred a number, two of which I sent to Mr. 

 E. A. Fitch, who replied, — ' the " spotted leg" is an Eupelmus, 

 and may be identical with Lindemann's Eupelmus Karschii ; 

 and the other, a Pteromalus, may be Semiotellus nigripes of 

 Lindemann, but at present it is not safe to go beyond family 

 and genus.' 



" I have not yet had an opportunity of submitting to Mr. 

 Fitch specimens of the other parasites bred, which I think I am 

 right in saying comprise four or five species of Semiotellus, one 

 Eupelmus, and a very small semiapterous species. Some of 

 these parasites I kept alive for nearly three weeks in pill- 

 boxes — in which I placed a piece of damp blotting-paper, and 

 a few infected stems and loose puparia, — where they soon 

 made themselves cjuite at home, running about briskly in 



