hn 



HYMENOPTERA SAW-FLIES, ETC. 195 



on many of the older trees from which I formerly collected my 

 supply, in good years amounting to over 300 bushels, is not worth 

 the trouble of gathering. I have raised some millions of plants on 

 this estate, but unless this pest can be kept in check, it will be 

 impossible to keep up the stock from home-grown supplies." 



Fig. 190 is a representation of injuries done to the seeds of Douglas 

 fir {Pseudotsuga Douglasii). The small holes show the exit of the 

 insects, and the seed is therefore totally injured. 



Dr MacDougall gives the following description of the insect : 



" This insect, Megastigmus spermotrophus, was first received by 

 Wachtl, of Vienna, in 1893, and was described by him as a new 

 species. In the spring of 1893 Wachtl got some specimens of 

 Megastigmus insects that had issued from the seeds of the Douglas 

 fir. From these specimens 

 "Wachtl described the male 

 and female of the species, 

 which description I now 

 give, in translation, from 

 Wachtl's paper : ^> 



'"The female (fig. 191) 6^ 



is loam-yellow ; the vertex W 



of the head and the fore- W 



head to the base of the pig _ m ._ S eeds of Dwglas fir (p seu dotsuga Douglasii) 

 ailtenn'B ire red - brOWll injured by Megastigmus spermotrophus (slightly 



c ' c ' reduced). 



the central part of the face 



(epistome), the inner edges of the eyes, and the palpi, yellow ; the 

 ocelli red-brown, each edged with black, and sometimes connected 

 with one another by means of black lines; never, however, is the 

 entire inner surface of the ocellar-triangle dark-coloured ; the eyes 

 during life are shining coral-red, after death red-brown ; antennae 

 blackish-brown, the scape, and the part between the scape and the 

 flagellum, reddish-yellow ; the pronotum with a more or less broad 

 yellow band at the hind edge ; the scutum of the mesonotum gener- 

 ally red-brown ; the outer side of the shoulders and the furrows of the 

 pan-apsides yellow ; the surroundings of the bases of the wings to 

 a slight extent black ; the diaphanous wings finely black haired ; the 

 knob or club of the ramus-stigmaticus longer than broad, elliptical 

 and black ; the coxae of the fore-legs yellow ; the pul villus on all the 

 legs black ; the compressed abdomen reddish - brown on the upper 



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