12 Sir S. S. Saunders' descriptions 



respective mouth-parts ; and the latter as Si/cocolacides, 

 unless appertaining to other sectional groups. 



But this primary severance of the respective races 

 would obviously seem to point to the incongruous posi- 

 tion occupied of late by the Sycophagides among the 

 entomophagous Chalcidida, and, as a necessary corollary, 

 to prescribe their transfer to a more congenial sphere, 

 by restoring them, as heretofore, to the vegetable-feeding 

 Cynipidce, where their alliance is more naturally indi- 

 cated. Exceptional instances have indeed been cited of 

 the latter being abnormally addicted to parasitism ; while, 

 on the other hand, some of the Eurytomides are alleged 

 to diverge from the well-known zoophagous propensities 

 of their race, and to be not only plant-feeders, but also 

 gall-producers, though many distinguished writers have 

 hesitated to accept such an anomalous conclusion, which 

 others have confidently expounded as the result of dili- 

 gent investigation ; but, be this as it may, the charac- 

 teristic habits of these germ-devouring fig-insects — for 

 whom all need of gall-protection is superseded by the 

 nature of their domicile — assimilate them to cognate 

 phytophagous communities, in accordance with the posi- 

 tion previously assigned them, while militating against 

 any confraternity with a hostile race having no kindred 

 bonds of fellowship to constitute a family alliance there- 

 with. 



The economy of Agaon, whose structural characters had 

 long proved so embarrassing, was utterly unknown when 

 Latreille, at a venture, placed this genus next to Eurytoma 

 in Cuvier's ' Animal Kingdom ' ; while its near allies, the 

 Blastophagce, are simultaneously adverted to, as a species 

 employed in caprification, under the heading of Cynips, 

 Linn. ; and it would seem difficult to comprehend the 

 rejection of their acquired title as such, when other far 

 more aberrant instances present themselves of actual 

 parasitism exceptionally witnessed among non-gallicolists 

 (such as some species of Figitcs, Allotria, &c.) which are 

 nevertheless tolerated in the same ranks with the Cyni- 

 pidce as co-heirs to their titular domain. 



It appears, however, to have been assumed a priori as 

 an axiom — when little was known upon the subject 

 beyond the revelations of certain writers more or less 

 antiquated — that all these fig-denizens were fruit-feeders ; 

 but subsequently, when other species were found com- 

 mingled therewith — such as those brought from Madras 



