178 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF 



It has hitherto been undiscribed and may be known by the specific 

 name of geleclda. 



MiCROGASTER GELECiiiA — Length 0.20 ^§. — Black, clothed with a short, thin, glittering, whitish 

 pubescence, most dense on the face, which latter is closely punctured ; occiput and cheeks shining; 

 mandibles rufopiceous ; palpi whitish ; eyes pubescent ; antennas as long as the body in $, 

 shorter in §, lS-jointed ; thorax shining, feeblj punctured, mesothorax closely and more strongly 

 punctured, with a deeply impressed longitudinal line on each side over base of wings ; scutellum 

 smooth and polished, the lateral groove broad, deep, arched and crenulat?d; metathorax opaque, 

 densely rugose, with a sharp, central, longitudinal carina, and a smooth, flat, transverse carina at 

 base; tegulse testaceous, wings hyaline, iridescent, apex smoky, nervures blackish, areolet com- 

 plete, subtriangular, radial nervure indistinct; legs pale honey-yellow, coxa- blackish, pale at 

 tips, middle pair in $ concolorous with legs ; abdomen with the two basal segments densely ru- 

 gose and opaque, the remainder smooth and shining; venter more or less varied with pale testa- 

 ceous. 



The galls containing worms that have been victimized by either 

 of these last two parasites are generally small and narrow, indicating 

 that the worm has been sickly and not able to perform its functions in 

 a proper manner, but those containing worms infested with the In- 

 flating Chalcis-fly, first described, are of the normal size, the worm 

 often having completed its passage-way before succumbing to its 

 enemy. 



There are two other and larger parasites which attack our little 

 Gall-maker, the one anundescribed species of Plmpla and the other 

 an undescribed species of Ephlaltes; making in all six distinct para- 

 sites. Besides these, there is another insect which intrudes upon and 

 often kills him. This last is the larva of some small long-horned bee- 

 tle, and most likely of some species of the genus Oberea, as it greatly 

 resembles the larva of Oberea ocellata, Hald., which I have bred from 

 the stems of the Cottonwood. After the parent gall-moth has de- 

 posited her egg, and the young worm and its gall have acquired con- 

 siderable size, the parent beetle of this larva comes along and deposits 

 her egg higher up on the same stem, and the larva hatching from it 

 immediately commences boring downwards till it reaches the gall, 

 where it riots until it has crowded out the properinhabitant and filled 

 the gall with excrementitious and pithy debris. It then continues 

 its descent till it reaches the root, where it continues boring till win- 

 ter approaches, and where it hybernates in the larva state. Sometimes 

 the gall-maker succeeds in webbing this intruder out, so that he only 

 partially destroys the gall, while at other times the intruder does not 

 reach the gall till the inmate has changed to the chiwsalis state ; but 

 in the latter case the moth always dies in its endeavors to escape. 

 The vacated galls of this gall-moth afford excellent winter shelter for 

 a variety of insects and spiders, and the common Chinch bug is espec- 

 ially fond of taking up its winter quarters in them. 



