164' 



ICHNEUMONID.E. CHALCIDIDJE. 



FIG. 486 PIMPLA. MANIPESTATOR, DEPOSITING ITS EGGS. 



This family is extremely numerous. Probably more than 3000 

 species exist in Europe alone ; and the number peculiar to other 



parts of the globe 

 may fairly be 

 reckoned as at 

 least equal. 

 Scarcely any 

 tribe of Insects 

 is free from 

 their attacks ; 

 although, as al- 

 ready stated, the 

 Lepidoptera are 

 the chief suf- 

 ferers. In re- 

 straining the 

 multiplication of 

 many Insects, 



which commit great injury against the Agriculturist, the Ich- 

 neumonidae render essential service to Man ; and there is no 

 mode in which they can be said to do him any counteracting 

 injury. 



757. The family CHALCIDID.E, or Chalets tribe, is composed 

 of a great number of parasitic insects, distinguished by their 

 generally very minute size (their length seldom exceeding a 

 line or two), their brilliant metallic or variegated colours, and 

 their nearly veinless wings. Like the Ichneumonidae, they are 

 all parasitic upon other insects in their early states ; the majority 

 infesting the larvas and pupse ; but some, from their minute 

 size, being reared within the eggs of other insects. They are 

 especially destructive to Lepidoptera ; but they will also attack 

 the species of most of the other Orders. Not unfrequently they 

 deposit their eggs in various kinds of galls, formed by the agency 

 of the preceding families ; and their progeny, when hatched, 

 attack and subsist on the larvos inclosed within : and there are 

 some species, whose larvae are parasitic upon those of other para- 



