47 



This little Chalcid fly is a very valuable egg-parasite, oecurring 

 thruout the United States, from Canada to Texas, and from 

 Massachusetts to Colorado. It has been reported as parasitizing 

 very extensively the eggs of many species of moths, including 

 the cotton worm {Aletia argillacea) , cotton boll-worm {Heliothis 

 armigem), zebra caterpillar {Mamestra picta) , codlin motli 

 {Cydia pomonella), and ^^\•st Indian sugar cane borer {Diatraca 

 saccharalis). It no doul^t destroys the eggs of many other species 

 as well. 



What was un(l()ul)tedly this species, Mr. Koebele, in his notes 

 fur lUOO, mentions as having become established on the eggs of 

 the palm leaf-roller {O. blackbumi), in Honolulu. Tho I find 

 no record of it, yet he prolxibly had introduced this parasite a 

 3^ear or two previously. It is now widely spread. I have bred it 

 from palm leaf-roller eggs in Honolulu; quite abundantly from 

 eggs of O. meyricki, a closely related species, whose caterpillars 

 were feeding on l)anana leaves at an elevation of alxmt 1500 feet 

 at Honomu, Hawaii; and I have had parasitized eggs of the 

 sugarcane leaf-roller {Omiodes accepta) fron Olaa and Kohala, 

 Hawaii. It probably is preying upon the eggs of the cane leaf- 

 roller wherever these are abundant thruout the islands. These 

 eggs are difficult to find, and hence not often seen unless the cane 

 is badly infested with leaf-rollers. On this account so little is 

 definitely known of the distribution of this little parasite. They 

 are so small that usually three of them obtain their full-growth 

 within one Omiodes egg. They breed very rapidly, i. e., have a 

 very short life cycle. I bred one generation of them in 10 days; 

 and in the West Indies they have been observed to reach maturity 

 in much less time than that. 



To my knowledge, this is the onl}' parasite on the eggs of 

 Lepidoptera in the Hawaiian Islands. 



Frontina archippivora (^\'illiston) . (Plate VI, fig. 4). 



Williston, Scudder's Butterflies of New P:ngland, III, 

 pi. LXXXIX, fig. 18, 1889. 



I have bred a large number of Tachinid flies of medium size 

 from leaf -rollers and cut- worms and other caterpillars. They 

 appear to be all of the same species, and apparently do not differ 



