588 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. VOL. 50. 



low, white, brown, and black, yellow usually predominating; antennae 

 usually banded with black and white, rarely of uniform color. 



Male. Closely resembles the female in structural characters, 

 but the head is thinner antereo-posteriorly, the front and vertex 

 wider; eyes smaller and the ocelli larger. Antennae always slenderer, 

 the scape not so widely dilated below, the flagellum more pubescent, 

 and the club always solid. The pedicel in most of the species is as 

 long as the first two or three funicle joints combined, but hi a few 

 species the whole antenna shows a more primitive structure, the 

 scape being comparatively short and narrow, the pedicel no longer 

 than the first funicle joint alone, the flagellum still more pubescent, 

 cylindrical or increasing but very slightly in width distad. 



The male usually differs but slightly from the female in color 

 but in a few species is much darker. The antennae are frequently 

 not so distinctly banded, and in many species the flagellum is uni- 

 formly brownish. 



Type of genus. Encyrtus apicalis Dalman. 



The species of Apliycus are numerous and of exceptional economic 

 importance, as they are parasitic in different species of Lecanium and 

 related genera, and in many cases serve as an efficient check upon the 

 increase of their hosts. Species of the following genera of the Coccinae 

 are known to be parasitized, sometimes even by more than one 

 species : Pulvinaria, Lichtensia, Filippia, Ceroplastes, Coccus, Tourney- 

 etta, Lecanium, Saissetia, and Pliysokermes. Species of ApJiycus have 

 also been reared from Tachardia and Eriococcus, but records of Dias- 

 pine hosts must be looked upon with suspicion. 



In 1898 Howard x published a table to separate the species in the 

 female sex, and this with many modifications has served as the basis 

 for the following table. This will aid in the identification of the 

 species, and the author hopes that it will prove to be reliable in the 

 great majority of cases. 



ANALYTICAL KEY OP SPECIES. 2 

 FEMALES. 



1. Wings uniformly ciliated and without tegumentary markings 9. 



Wings either with a band of weaker, paler colored cilia, or with a tegumentary spot. 



Wings with a tegumentary spot 2. 



Wings alternately banded with dark and pale cilia 4. 



1 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 21, p. 240. 



2 Since this synopsis was drawn up the description of Aphycus praevidens Silvestri has appeared (Boll. 

 Portici Lab., vol. 9, 1915, p. 295, fig. 52). In the female sex praevidens runs to lounsburyi Howard but the 

 posterior ocelli are more distant from the eye margin; the antennae about the same except that the first 

 three funicle joints are black instead of the first four, and the club is not entirely black; coloration evidently 

 paler, yellowish instead of dark or dusky orange yellow, the metanotum and propodeum without brown 

 markings, the dorsum of the abdomen paler with the brown less extensive. The male is more like pulvi- 

 nariae Howard in having the flagellum uniformly brown, and the dorsum of the body is described as 

 ochraceous brown or darker than in either lounsburyi or pulvinariae. 



