TACHINID PARASITES OF THE GIPSY MOTH. 



213 



forward in the case of TJieronia fulvescens Cress. It is therefore con- 

 sidered as a secondary just as much and as habitually as it is a primary 

 and the question as to whether it is of enough more importance in 

 one role than it is in the other to render it more than neutral remains 

 to be decided. Apparently its value as a primary is sufficient to 

 render void its noxiousness as a secondary, and to leave a consider- 

 able margin to its good, but this margin does not seem quite as wide 

 now as it did a year ago, and it will require a year or two more to 

 determine the true status of the parasite. 



Miscellaneous Parasites. 



There is quite a number of small chalcidids, the most of them 

 being Dibrachys boucheanus Ratz., which are occasionally received 

 with shipments of tachinids 

 from abroad. None of 

 them is of any importance 

 whatever in this connec- 

 tion, from the point of 

 view gained through the 

 study of the material col- 

 lected and sent under the 

 conditions which have pre- 

 vailed in the past. Some- 

 times when lots of loose 

 pup aria have been shipped 

 as such, loosely packed, 

 two or three among them 

 have produced a colony of 

 Dibrachys or some other 

 parasite of similar size and 

 habits, and these individ- 

 uals have immediately set 

 about the propagation of 

 their species with such good effect as to bring about the destruction 

 of the larger part of the remaining puparia. 



No serious effort has as yet been made to sort the Chalcididae thus 

 reared to species, much less to determine their specific identity. 



Fig. 35. — Blepharipa scutellata: Adult female. 

 (Original.) 



Enlarged. 



BLEPHARIPA SCUTELLATA DESV. 



Among the tachinid parasites of the gipsy moth caterpillars or the 

 brown-tail moth caterpillars, Blepharipa scutellata (fig. 35) is the 

 most conspicuous representative of the group characterized by the 

 habit of depositing eggs (figs. 36 and 37) upon the foliage of trees or 

 other plants frequented by its host with the deliberate intention that 

 they shall be devoured. It is also an exceedingly close ally to the 



