482 Messrs. E. ie and Claude Morley on the 
207. Gymnetron asellus, Grav.* 
From this species, Mayr also records (Verh. z.-b. Ges., 
1878, pp. 301 et seqg.) his Hurytoma curculionum in Lower 
Austria: three specimens were bred by Oberforster Wachtl, 
probably from Verbascum stems. 
208a. GYMNETRON LYCHNITIDIS.* 
Pteromalus transiens, Rondani, nec Walk., has been 
recorded from a weevil under this name by its author in 
Italy (Bull. Soc. Ent. Ital., 1877, p. 196). 
209. Mecinus collaris, Germ. 
“T have bred Mecinus collaris from galls of Plantago 
marituma, which are very abundant here (Southsea), though 
the beetle is rare, as 99 out of every 100 galls contain 
Hymenopterous parasites ’’ (Moncreaff, E. M. M., 1870, p. 
81). “ Mieromelus pyrrhogaster, Walk.—I bred a male and 
female of this interesting Chalcid from Mecinus collaris 
galls, on the flowering stems of Plantago maritima. I 
have no doubt but that they were parasitic on these 
small beetles” (Bignell, Entom., 1884, p. 46). “I had 
some flower stems of Plantago maritima, all swollen and 
gouty-looking by the galls of Mecinus collaris; in some 
stems a cicatrix was visible, where probably the egg had 
been inserted; others showed a hole from which the 
weevil had evidently emerged. The stems were tunnelled 
up the centre and divided into compartments, each con- 
taining a larva, pupa or beetle, or larva or pupa of the 
parasite. These last were black, shining, little pupae ; in 
some cases the cell contained two larvae. One beetle larva 
contained a large fat white Chalcid larva. In later stems 
there were hardly any beetles or pupae of beetles, but only 
Chalcid pupae. These were head upwards in the cavity 
and slightly attached at the lower end to the shrunken 
larva-skin. ‘There were as many as four or five cavities in 
a stem, often right up into the flowering portion. This 
was in August and the Chalcid pupae remained in the dry 
and dead stems through the winter, the flies emerging in 
the following May and June. I should think quite seventy- 
five per cent. of the beetles were destroyed by this Chalcid ” 
(H. J. Charbonnier, of Bristol, in /it., Jan. 3,1908. The 
parasite in this case is a fine green Hlachistid.—C. M.) 
