seeds of Ficus Sycomorus and Carica, 49 



that M. Coquerel's supposed wingless females are the 

 wmgless males of winged females, and that they certainly 

 are not parasitic on their winged partners. My two 

 memoirs on Scleroderma, published in our Transactions 

 (vol. ii. and 1881), and the illustrations of the sexes of 

 Scleroderma given in my ' Thesaurus Entomologicus ' 

 (PL 31), will equally show that whilst Scleroderma is 

 referable to the Bethijlides, the fig-insects have no real 

 relationship therewith. 



Discarding then the supposed relationship of these 

 fig-insects with the Heterogyna of Latreille, as well as 

 with the Bethylideous Sclerodermce, we must search 

 for their genuine allies in the other great divisions of the 

 Spiculiferous Terebrantia (see my Introd. Mod. Class., 

 Ins. ii. p. 124), namely, the gall-feeding Cynipidce, with a 

 subspiral ovipositor ; or the parasitic Ichneumoimhe, with 

 a straight ovipositor and straight multiarticulate an- 

 tennae having a short basal joint ; or the parasitic 

 Chalcididce, with a straight ovipositor and more or less 

 elbowed few-jointed antennae, having a long basal joint. 

 The difficulty attending the adoption of a classification 

 in which either structure or economy is implicitly adopted, 

 is well shown in some of these Terebrant groups, whether 

 families or genera. Thus in the vegetable-feeding gall- 

 making Cyiiipidce we have species which are parasitic on 

 other insects, as is the case with the little species of my 

 genus Allotria, of which I observed a female in the act of 

 ovipositing in the body of a rose-aphis, and subsequently 

 reared specimens hatched from infested Aphides. Other 

 parasitic species of Cynipidce are also recorded in my 

 ' Introduction ' ii., p. 132. 



We thus see that Phytophagism is no bar for the 

 exclusion of parasitism as an exclusive character of the 

 CynipidcB ; but the structure of the fig-insects, especially 

 as shown in the females (whose character must be con- 

 sidered as more truly normal than that of the males), 

 recedes so entirely from that of the Cynijjidce that we 

 cannot for a moment adopt the suggestion that the fig- 

 insects are Cynipidce ; in fact, although phytophagists, 

 they are certainly not gallicolists. 



With the parasitic IchneumonidcB and Chalcididce it 

 might be urged that they are more nearly related, not- 

 withstanding their plant-feeding habits ; and here again 

 we are led not to place too much weight upon economy, 

 from the fact that some species of Eurytoma (next to 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1882. — PART I. (APRIL.) H 



