16 Sir S. S. Saunders' descriptions 



loped example of Sycophaga has been observed to expand 

 this organ to its fullest extent in order to acquire a 

 proper consistency, after being encircled and cramped 

 within the small dimensions of the pericarp {loc. cit., 

 1882, pi. ii.), yet it always retains, as in other instances, 

 a curvate tendency in the sequel. Thus in the original 

 description of the genus (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. vol. ii., 

 p. 322), we read: — " Oridiuius trisetosiis, setis cequalibus, 

 abdominis duplo longioribus, et valde incurvatis" as repre- 

 sented (ibid) in pi. xx., fig, 5 k. 



Taking, however, these tests seriatim (1) the minute 

 articulations delineated by Professor Westwood in the 

 antennae of the female Sycophaga (Trans. Ent. Soc. 

 Lond., 1882, pi. ii., fig. 6), scarcely correspond with any 

 in the same sex of Callimome ; nor do they occur in 

 Blastophaga (ibid, pi. v., fig. 51), whose antennae, more- 

 over, have the 4th joint produced into a long projecting 

 spine, thus differing vastly from those of Callimome. 

 The small annuli in the antennae of the Eurytomides, as 

 figured by Curtis in Decatoma (Brit. Entom., pi. 845) are 

 also witnessed among some of the fig-insects belonging 

 to the parasitic races, but these differ essentially from 

 the aforesaid articulations in the antennae of Sycophaga ; 

 and the presence of such annuli in the alleged vegetable- 

 feeding species of the former would seem to attest their 

 ancestral " Unity of Habits " with others of the same 

 group, however much their appetites may have become 

 chastened by some mysterious dispensation. So also in 

 Dr. Paul Meyer's figure (from Cavolini)* of the supposed 

 female of " Ichneumon Ji-carius " (loc. cit., p. 564, pi. xxv., 

 fig. 5, and pi. xxvi., fig. 13) ; the male, however, being 

 evidently a Sycoscapter, generically distinct from such 

 female, which has a long ovipositor with a tubiform 

 base, as described by Walker in Idarnes transiens (Idar- 

 nella, Westw.). 



(2). As regards the fusion of the three terminal joints 

 of the antennae, this is not a reliable character through- 

 out the germ-feeders, for it does not exist in Eupristina 

 (PL I., fig. 14), nor in the Madagascar species (PI. III., 

 figs. 39, 40), both of which have these terminal joints dis- 

 tinctly separated from each other. So likewise in Agaon, 



* Filippo Cavolini. " Meruoriaper servire alia storia cornpiuta 

 del fico e della proficazione." Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze e sulle 

 arti ; Tome v., Milano, 1782. (Dr. P. Meyer, I. c, p. 579). 



