150 Psyche [October 



place to others. May 31 was the date of the last specimens to 

 appear in this box. In all, twenty-two males, twenty-four females 

 and five or six which escaped before their sex was determined 

 issued from this box. 



Under natural conditions this parasite was, oddly enough, the 

 last to make its appearance. In Box No. 2 four males and one 

 female issued between July 26 and July 31, over two weeks after 

 all the other species (except for those in the cold-storage box) had 

 ceased to emerge, and in Box No. 3 six females and four males 

 appeared, at about the same time. The total from all the boxes 

 was thus about 66, and the percentage of parasitism, counting 200 

 eggs to the cluster, was only 0.06 per cent. This is, of course, 

 economically negligible, supposing it to represent typical con- 

 ditions. 



As its name shows, this insect was described as a caterpillar 

 parasite, but as the Aphelininse, the subfamily to which it belongs, 

 are otherwise exclusively parasites of the Coccidse, and as it was 

 afterwards reared by Howard and others from Aspidiotvs and 

 Chionaspis, it was naturally assumed that Ashmead had been 

 mistaken. In the present case, not only were the trees from which 

 the eggs were taken practically, if not absolutely free from scales 

 of any kind, but the egg-masses were in all cases removed from the 

 twigs on which they had been deposited and placed in the boxes 

 by themselves. Under these conditions the corroboration of the 

 original record is certainly ample. 



So far as I know, there are few parallels to this case among the 

 Chalcidoidea. The exact relationships of this insect to such 

 widely separated hosts would appear to be a problem of consider- 

 able biological interest. 



The Ablerus is a very attractive little insect, blue-black in color 

 with bright red eyes, which appear, owing to the irridescent cornea, 

 to be surrounded by a band of brilliant metallic blue. The male 

 has not been described, so far as I know. It is smaller and some- 

 what slenderer than the female. The antennae are seven-jointed 

 as in the female, but are relatively longer, lack a definite club, 

 and are uniformly straw-colored instead of being banded. The 

 head, testaceous in the female, is dusky in the male, and the wings 

 are completely hyaline whereas those of the female have a dis- 

 tinct median cloud. 



