ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 



367 



ascertain whether or not this Simulium is in- 

 jurious in the larva state, by Icilling the young 

 trout, or beneftcial, by furnishing said trout with 

 desirable food. The settlement of the question 

 must deeply interest fish-growers, and the New 

 York fish commissioners should by all means 

 cause the proper investigations to be made. It 

 is conceded that the larva can spin a web at any 

 time of its life, and we confess that Mr. Green's 

 conclusions seem quite plausible. Yet our fair 

 correspondent is of a different opinion, believing 

 the whole thing to be a "fish story;" and we 

 may add here that Mr. Fred. Mather, of Iloneoye 

 Falls, N. Y., is of her oijinion, for he wrote to 

 us last July — " I do not believe they [the worms] 

 over killed a dozen young trout since the Crea- 

 tion." According to our promise we subjoin a 

 description of the species. 



SiMDLinM pisciciDiuH, h. sp— 9 Head velvety black; 

 eyes brownish: anteniife with joints 1,2, 3 and 11 subequal in 

 lensth, each of the others half as long, 1 and 2 rufous, 3—11 

 inclusive, black and gradually dimiuishinff in thickness to the 

 last, \\llicll is lii.-iloijii; |i;il|'.i IihilC'V lliali HiUclllKO, black. 

 Tftora,!' v, h.H lilai-k Hjllj flint t'lilvc.lis laihrx-.nci' above: 



less t 



nuvo 



joi, 



us. Length of body [alcoholic t 



ith the vein.s ful 

 mens], 0.14— 0.L7 



Described from six specimens bred by Sara 

 J. McBride from the larva illustrated at Figure 

 143. "When fresh the lighter parts of the abdo- 

 men are often blood-red or dull-red. We have 

 but smaU means of ascertaining whether this 

 species is really described, or wherein it differs 

 from our other described species. It difTers 

 notably from S. reptans, Linn., and from 8. 

 venustum. Say. 8. calceatum, Harris, is appa- 

 rently a catalogue name, and cannot be identi- 

 fied, except by comparison with the type, which 

 may not now exist. Of 8. decorum, Walk., 8. 

 invenustum, Walk., and 8. vittatum, Zett., we 

 have no descriptions at hand. Our specimens, 

 which seem to be all ? , are some of them in 

 alcohol and some in glycerine. Those from the 

 alcohol, upon drying, appear more grayish than 

 those from glycerine, and no doubt the velvety 

 appearance would give way to a brighter and 

 more metallic lustre in the living and well mar 

 tured specimens. But the coloration of the legs 

 will at once distinguish the species. — Ed.] 



Nai-oleon, at the siumnit of his prosperity, 

 never inflicted more damage on a nation than 

 the liliputian insect army annually inflicts on the 

 United States. 



On the Group Eurytomides of the Hymenopterona 

 Family Chalcididfe : 



DESCRIPTION OF ANTIGASTKR, A NEW AND VERY 

 ANOMALOUS GKNUS OF CHALCIDID.E. 



[Concluded. '\ 

 SUBFAMILY PTEROM.^LIDES, Westw. 



Genus Semiotkllus, Westw.— The species now to be 

 described is parasitic upon Isosoma hordei (the Joint-woi-m 

 Fly), Harris, and is congeneric with the celebrated parasite' 

 of the Hessian Fly {Cecidomyia destructor. Say), which was 

 specifically named destructor by Say in the year 1821 . To 

 illustrate the general uncertainty and obscm-ity as to the 

 correct classification of the Chalcis flies, it may be stated 

 here that Say originally referred this species to the genus 

 Ceraphron, which does not even belong to the Clwlcis family, 

 but to the closely allied Proctolrijpes family. Westwood, 

 writing in 1840 and judging from Say's figures and descrip- 

 tions alone, declared that it must be ' 'evidently one of the 

 Eulophides," the 5th siihtamUy of Chalcidida: (,Inlrod II, p. 

 160) i though, according to Curtis, he subsequently changed 

 his opinion, and thought that "it might possibly be a Plero- 

 malus," a genus belonging to the 3rd subfamily of Chalcidida 

 (Curtis's Farm Imects, p. 260). Dr. Harris, in 1841, being 

 led into this error by a letter of HeiTich's, dated Jan. 34, 

 1840 (see Harris Correspondence , p . 195) , refen-ed it to the 

 genus Euryloma, which belongs to the 2nd subfamily of 

 Chalcidida; and for a long time the insect was ciurrently 

 known by Dr. Fitch and others as Eurytoma destructor. Say. 

 At length in 1852 Dr. Harris, perceiving that the insect dif- 

 fered altogether from true Eurytoma, referred it doubtingly 

 to Rhaphitelus, a genus of the 3rd subfamily of Chalcididce. 

 In my Essay on Illinois Insects, published in 1864, in the 

 Trans. III. St. Agr. Society (IV, p. 370) , not having then seen 

 the second edition of Harris's book on Injurious Insects, in 

 which Harris's lasl generic determination was announced, 

 as his first determination had been announced in the first 

 edition of the same work, which I had long previously seen, 

 I doubtingly referred this and two closely allied species to 

 Glyphe, a genus belonging to precisely the same sub-group 

 of the 3rd a\ih{a.vai\j ol Chalcidida: &i Rhaphitelus . Finally, 

 Dr. Fitch, writing in the same year, 1861, as myself, trans- 

 ferred this unfortunate wanderer to a genus — Semiotellus — 

 belonging to a different but allied sub-group of the same 3rd 

 subfamily of Chalcidida. Thus we see that one and the same 

 insect has at different times, and by different authors, been 

 classified in two different tamiliea—Proclolrypidce and Chal- 

 cididiB—anA iu no less than three different subfamilies of the 

 latter family, namely the 2nd, 3rd and 5th, and in as many 

 as five different genera included in those three subfamilies, 

 namely Eurytoma, Pteromalus, Glyphe, Rhaphitelus and 

 Semiotellus. 



For reasons given at the commencement of this paper, I 

 do not feel disposed to dispute here the correctness of the 

 generic nomenclatiu-e adopted by Dr. Fitch. I am satisfied, 

 at all events, that I was wrong myself in referring the Hes- 

 sian Fly parasite and its allies to Glyphe . As facts are always 

 of far more scientific importance than phrases, I subjoin here 

 the leading generic characters by which the genus— whatever 

 name we may choose hereafter to give to it— may be distin- 

 guished. 



Genus Semiotellus? West., Fitch. (Fig. 7).— Body short 

 and stout . Head transverse, and much wider than the thorax. 

 Antenna; d' Q 9-jointed (Sc.-|-7+CI ), with the club acute at 

 tip, much compressed and almost setifoi-m, especially rf, 

 when viewed in one direction; auteunie (f filifonu, the club 

 as long as the two preceding joints put together, and in no 

 point of view wider than they are; antennae Q gradually 

 thickened from the base nearly to the tip of the flageUum, 



