44 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., '05 



part of its life feeds on vegetable matter, is also a representa- 

 tive of the Ichneumonid subfamily Pimplinae, while Habro- 

 cryptus grceyiicheri, the second parasite to be considered in this 

 paper, belongs to the subfamily Cryptinae. 



Before dealing with the habits of these parasites, I prefer to 

 briefly consider the habits of the bee Ceratina dnpia, as observed 

 in our surroundings. Both sexes pass the winter together in 

 hollow stems, and copulate in the spring, but not very early. 

 Last season (1904), which was an exceedingly late one, they 

 were seen copulating on the flowers of the dandelion on May 

 19th and 20th, although some bees of other genera (^An- 

 drena and Halidiis) were preparing their nests already at the 

 end of April. In this same locality the Ceratina bees did not 

 take up the work with their nests until about June 14th. The 

 pithy stems of various plants are hollowed out, sometimes to a 

 considerable depth, and cell after cell is furnished with the food 

 supply and an Q'g^, each cell being separated from its neigh- 

 bors by a partition of its particles. Around the beginning of 

 August the first young bees appear in the cells at the bottom 

 of the nest, and these have to wait, as Comstock has observed, 

 until all the others above them (sometimes 15 or more) have 

 emerged, whereupon the whole family is led out of the nest by 

 the mother bee. This does not take place before the second 

 half of August or even the beginning of September. Com- 

 stock witnessed two broods in his surroundings, but in our 

 region I have never seen the.se bees produce more than one 

 brood. 



Grotea anguina Cress. 



Altogether 16 nests of Ceratina dupla containing either the 

 eggs or the recently hatched larvae of the para.site Grotea 

 anguifia were obtained. 



The eggs of parasitic insects are often remarkable on account 

 of their small size, and in this particular case the difference in 

 size between the egg of the parasite and that of the bee is at 

 once noticeable. The egg of the latter is about 2% mm. long 

 and I mm. broad, while that of Grotea aiiguina hardly reaches 

 more than one-half of the length and one-fourth of the breadth 

 of the bee's egg. As a rule the egg of the parasite is placed 



