166 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



* * * The wings are of moderate size ; the stigma (a thick- 

 ened opaque spot on the anterior margin of the fore-wing, 

 nearer the apex) is large, and the costal margin (rib running 

 along the anterior margin) is thickened, or rather the costal 

 (rib) and subcostal (next behind the rib) nerves are confluent, 

 so as not to exhibit a subcostal cell. The legs are long, and 

 formed for running. * * * The abdomen is generally long 

 and cylindrical, or elongate ovate, (long egg-shaped,) and nar- 

 rowed at the base into a short peduncle, on each side of which 

 is a small tubercle, in which -a minute spiracle* (breathing- 

 pore) exists." Other characters of less prominence assist in 

 defining this group, but the foregoing, copied from Westwood's 

 Introduction to the Classification of Insects, will I think be 

 sufficient to enable most observers to locate an insect belonging 

 to this family. 



Ichneumon suturdlis of Say, or the black sutured, 

 ichneumon, (figure 40, Harr.,') is a common 

 species through North America, and attacks vari- 

 ous caterpillars, of both moths and butterflies. I 

 raised several specimens from the larvae of Lencd- 

 Fig. 40. nia unipuncla, Ilaworth, or " army worm," which 

 was exceedingly abundant and injurious in this State in the 

 summer and fall of 1861. The following is Say's description : 

 " Body pale ferruginous ; antennae black beyond the middle ; 

 trunk with black sutures ; scutel (a small semi-oval plate on 

 the back of the thorax) more or less tinged with yellow ; wings 

 tinged with ferruginous ; carpus (the spot on tlie anterior 

 margin of the fore-wing, usually called stigma) yellowish ; 

 nervures blackish ; central cellule pentangular, (five cornered,) 

 the side on the radial cellule rather smallest, basal and apical 

 sides longest, not parallel ; metathorax with slightly elevated 

 lines in the form of an H ; tergura (back or upper surface of 

 tiic abdomen) with the apical sutures not black ; basal segment 

 with two slightly elevated longitudinal lines ; tibiae, posterior 

 pair black at tip ; venter, basal segment black ; sutures not 

 black ; oviduct (egg-tube) not longer than the breadth of the 

 anal segment." It varies sometimes in color, dilTeront speci- 



* Insects do not breathe by means of lunf;;s openinjx into the mouth or 

 nostrils, but by small pores on the sides of the body, called spiracles, of which 

 there are usually nine on each side. 



