522 Mr. R. C. L. Perkins on Hawaiian Ophioninae. 



mead did not understand the specific characters of the 

 difficult Hawaiian Enicospilus, and subsequently I myself 

 described several species which are mere local forms or 

 varieties of his. The names of these may well be dropped 

 unless one proposes to create numbers of new names for 

 these very variable and difficult insects. On account of 

 the mixture of species under one name Ashmead's descrip- 

 tions are impossible for correct identifications, as a study 

 of his types and the series of specimens in the British 

 Museum prove. Thus the eight examples under E. maui- 

 cola, Ashm., clearly belong to three distinct species. Most 

 unfortunately Ashmead, when describing the parasitic 

 Hymenoptera, applied the names of particular islands, on 

 which they were captured, to various species (even though 

 they were then known to be widely distributed), but did 

 not choose his types to suit the specific names. Thus the 

 type of E. mauicola is from Kilauea, Hawaii, and there is 

 no Maui example in the British Museum series; that of 

 E. kaalae is from Kauai and not from Mt. Kaala on Oahu, 

 and so on. 



Morley's work on the Ophionines does not throw much 

 light on the Hawaiian species, as he does not include the 

 peculiar genera characterised by Ashmead, the types of 

 which have long been in the British Museum. Ophion 

 nigricans, Cam., he retains in Ophion, though it is obviously 

 an Enicospilus with the spot of the discocubital cell very 

 small and faint or transparent. The variability of these 

 spots and of the propodeal carina is of the commonest 

 occurrence in various Hawaiian species. In the example 

 of 0. nigricans, retained by Blackburn, the spot is 

 quite distinct and dark. Ashmead described the large 

 rufescent form of this species as E. castaneiis, but all sorts 

 of parti-coloured varieties between this form and one 

 entirely blackish-fuscous are known, and the variation 

 in the propodeal carina and the discocubital spot occurs 

 in all. Both may be seen in all stages of degeneration. 

 Probably the species parasitises hosts of very different 

 size, like other Hawaiian Enicospilus, and rufescent and 

 black forms pair together. 



The hosts of the Hawaiian Ophionini are but little 

 known, though the cocoons are often found in numbers 

 when one is collecting Coleoptera. Enicospilus is known 

 to attack Noctuidae and Goemetridae, and Athyreodon is 

 bred from Pyralidae, while a large number of immature 



