40 Mr. J. 0. Westwood on a genus of Parasitic Hymenoptera. 



imperfect sketch, and that seven out of the nine generic cha- 

 racters given by him in the ' Gard. Chronicle/ p. 183, are erro- 

 neous; namely, 1st, the size of the head of the female; 2nd, the 

 description of the female antennae ; 3rd, description of the wings 

 of the female ; 4th, description of the tarsi of the female ; 5th, de- 

 scription of the antennae of the male; 6th, description of the eyes 

 of the male ; 7th, size of the insects. Some of these characters, 

 namely the veins of the wings and the 5 -jointed tarsi, neither 

 belong to the family nor subfamily to which the insect is to be 

 referred, whilst the possession of stemmatous eyes by the male is 

 disproved by every known species of winged insect, whereas it is 

 as essentially a character of some of the Ametabolous tribes. 

 Mr. Newport admits it to be possible, but not probable, that he 

 has made these mistakes (Gard. Chron. May 26th), and brings 

 forward his own and my descriptions of the male antennae to show 

 the improbability ; but on examining his drawing I find the space 

 for the joints he has overlooked indicated by an increased length 

 of the base of the following joint. The proper way to disprove 

 my assertions is to produce his specimens for the examination of 

 competent entomologists. 



4th. Respecting the physiology of Mr. Newport's paper it is 

 to be observed, that finding two species of larvae in the nests of 

 Anthophora, both of which produced species of Chalcididce (a fa- 

 mily hitherto known only as insectivorous parasites), and finding 

 moreover on dissection that both these larvae possessed the same 

 forms of the digestive organs, Mr. Newport arrived at the con- 

 clusion that one was insectivorous, and the other pollinivorous ! 

 Driven however from this ground by the direct observation of the 

 parasitism of Monodontomerus by Mr. F. Smith (who, notwith- 

 standing Mr. Newport's attempt to deprive him of the credit 

 thereof, was the first who discovered the parasitic larvae of that 

 insect, and directed Mr. Newport to the spot), Mr. Newport tells 

 us (Gard. Chron. p. 231), that " what he had chiefly dwelt upon 

 in his paper was the circumstance of its being an external feeder, 

 as proved by the hairs on its body, although he had advocated 

 the opinion that it fed on pollen ; but as to whether this was the 

 case or not, he considered that it mattered but little with refer- 

 ence to the anatomical facts he had described :" in other words, 

 that it was immaterial whether the insect were carnivorous or 

 pollinivorous, its peculiar anatomy being equally suited for either 

 condition ! But even here Mr. Newport has arrived at a wrong 

 conclusion, for the hairs on the outside of the body of the larva 

 are not characteristic of external feeding parasite-larvae, since 

 those of Eulophus Nemati, which feed on the surface of the body 

 of the larva of Nematus inter cus, are destitute of hairs. 



As the paper which I read at the Linnaean Society on the 



