14 Sir S. S. Saunders' descriptions 



When Gravenhorst drew attention thereto hy his able 

 " Disquisitio de Cynipe Psene avAtorwril" &c. ('Beitrage 

 zur Entomologie,' 1 Heft, Breslau, 1829, p. 27), no 

 other divergent types had been recorded in connection 

 therewith ; but, while adverting to the non-existence in 

 his Blastophaga of a spiral ovipositor, such as Linnaeus 

 ascribed to the Cynipida, he nevertheless avows that 

 Latreille refers the Cynips psenes to that family, and that 

 Blastophaga must doubtless be comprised therewith, 

 discarding the idea of any affinity between the latter and 

 the Chalcididce, as defined by Jurine, and stating that 

 his species differed from any of the latter which he had 

 seen, " capite ovato-orbiculato et vita ratione " (loc. cit., 

 p. 32). 



Some years after (1837) Professor Westwood, in his in- 

 teresting memoir on " Caprification, &c." — when discuss- 

 ing the merits of Dalman's alternative suggestion of a 

 seeming analogy in his Agaon with the Pteromali and the 

 Codrini {Chalcididce and Proctotrupidae), but especially 

 with the former — expressed his opinion " that the curious 

 little groups above described are certainly referable to 

 the Chalcididce rather than to the Proctotirupida " ; add- 

 ing that "from all these insects, however, they are at 

 once removed by their fruit-feeding Jtabits, as well as by 

 various anomalous portions of their structure, so that 

 I hesitate to name any particular group in that family 

 to which they ought to be considered as most nearly 

 allied " (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., vol. ii., p. 223). 



Subsequently Dr. Coquerel discovered certain strange- 

 looking fig-insects in the Island of Bourbon, which he 

 characterised as abnormal parasites , regarding them as 

 " les femelles apteres et aveugles de quelque male aile et 

 inconnu " (Kev. et Mag. de Zool., 2e serie, Tome vii., 

 1855), these being the now recognised males of winged 

 females, their legitimate partners having been maligned 

 as " Chalcidites qui selon toute apparence s'etaient 

 developpes a leurs depens ! " 



Thus, under the influence of such mistaken identity, 

 a delusive character clung to both sexes of the genuine 

 phytophagous brood ; so that Walker, when describing Sir 

 Walter Elliot's specimens from the Ficus Indica (' Notes 

 on Chalcidiae,' 1871), consigned them all to his parasitic 

 races, together with Blastophaga and Sycophaga, as alike 

 " cradled in tigs " — a principle which would not apply to 

 all the inmates of galls — branding L his calumniated 



