452 1NSECTA. 



them. Sometimes they live there solitarily, and sometimes in society, 

 feeding on their internal parietes without interfering with their develop- 

 ment, and remaining" five or six months in this condition. There also some 

 undergo their metamorphosis, to effect which, others issue forth and de- 

 scend into the earth where they remain till their final change is completed. 

 The round holes observed on the exterior of the gall intimate the exit of 

 the Insect. Several Insects of the following family are also sometimes 

 found in it, but this has been by destroying the natural inhabitants, of whose 

 domicil they have taken possession, in the manner of the Ichneumons. 



Certain species are apterous. One species deposits its ova in the pollen 

 of the earliest of the wild Fig-trees. The modern Greeks, in pursuance of 

 a method transmitted to them from antiquity, pierce several of these figs, 

 and place them on their late bearing trees of the same genus; the Cynips 

 soon leave their old dwelling and come out loaded with the fecundating 

 dust, insinuate themselves into the eye of the fruit borne by the latter, fe- 

 cundate its seeds, and accelerate the period of its maturity. This operation 

 is termed caprification. 



C. gallss tinctorial. Very pale fulvous; covered with a silky and whitish 

 down, with a blackish-brown and glossy spot on the abdomen. In the 

 round, hard and tuberculous gall found on a species of Oak in the Levant, 

 which is employed in commerce. By breaking this gall we may frequently 

 obtain the perfect Insect. 



The fourth tribe, that of the CHALCIDI^J, Spin. , only differs es- 

 sentially from the preceding one in the antennae, which are 

 geniculate, those of the Euchares alone excepted, and which, from 

 the elbow, form an elongated or fusiform club, of which the first 

 joint is frequently lodged in a groove. The palpi are very short. 

 The number of joints of the antennae never exceeds twelve. 



We may refer the various genera established in this tribe to the 

 genus 



CHALCIS, Fab. 



These Insects are very small, and are decorated with extremely brilliant 

 metallic colours. Most of them enjoy the faculty of leaping. The ovi- 

 positor, like that of the Ichneumons, is salient and frequently composed of 

 three threads; the larvae are also parasitical. Some of them, on account of 

 their extreme minuteness, live in the interior of the almost imperceptible 

 ova of Insects. Others inhabit galls and the chrysalides of the Lepidoptera. 

 I suspect that they do not spin a cocoon. 

 There are various subgenera. 



In the fifth tribe, that of the OXIURI, Lat,, we observe species 

 similar to the preceding in the absence of nervures in the inferior 



