NO ICHNEUMOX-FLIES ATTACK LOCUSTS. 325 



to attack any of the different locusts or grasshoppers that occur in the 

 country. We have sought diligently for evidence of the occurrence in 

 locusts of any of these essentially parasitic insects. By Ichneumon- 

 flies we intend, not those of the genus IcJmeumon alone, but any belong- 

 ing to the great family Ichneumonidce. They are known to attack plant- 

 feeding species of all Orders except the Half-winged bugs {Heteroptera) 

 and the Straight- winged insects {OrtJtoptera)^ to which last the locust 

 belongs. Westwood, St. Fargeau, BruUe, and other authors who have 

 paid especial attention to these Ichneumon-flies, all concur in excepting 

 the Orthoptera from their attacks. Yon Motschulsky speaks of having 

 found a species {Proctotrupes hrevipennis^ Latr.) of an allied family near 

 Italian locusts, and infers, without proof whatever, its possible parasit- 

 ism thereon j but, of the latest and most reliable European authorities, 

 Gerstacker and Koppen, the former states explicitly that no Ichneumon 

 is known, to attack the European locust, while the latter knows of none, 

 and refers only to rumors of the occurrence of bee-like insects that sting 

 the locust, and which rumors doubtless have reference to Digger-wasps 

 or Tachina-flies. Again, Mr. Thomas Bath,^^ in treating of the injuries 

 of locusts in Australia, one species of which (given as (Edipoda musica, 

 Fabr.) in size and general appearance is not unlike our spretus^ figures 

 an Ichneumon-fly (given as Bracon capitata) stinging a locust, and cer- 

 tain maggots, supposed to be the larvae of the same, taken from a locust. 

 But the former is imaginary, unreal, and evidently not from actual ob- 

 servation, while the latter are evidently the larvse, not of an Ichneumon, 

 but of some Dipterous (doubtless Tacliina) fly. Coming to our own 

 country, Mr. Brous, in 1876, sent us two Ichneumons — a Campoplex and 

 Pimpla notanda, Oresson — noticed flying about locusts, but without 

 evidence of their stinging these j and Professor Aughey has sent us a 

 female Lampronota brunnedj Cresson, which he believes to have bred 

 from winged specimens of spretus in August, 1874. But his notes lack 

 in absolute certainty, and he himself has on that account refrained from 

 referring to the supposed fact ; while the long ovipositor and well-known 

 habit of some species of the genus of preying on wood-boring Coleop- 

 terous larvse, to reach which the ovipositor is admirably adapted, 

 strengthen the uncertainty, and render further corroborative evidence 

 necessary before we can say that any Ichneumon-fly actually preys on 

 the Eocky Mountain locust. 



Keports from farmers, of Ichneumon-flies attacking locusts, are not 

 uncommon, because this term is often erroneously applied to any para- 

 ' site, and especially to the Tachina-flies and the Anthomyia egg-parasite, 

 already treated of. Some writers have even sought to justify its appli- 

 cation to this last species, on the ground that the term " ichneumon " means 

 an egg-feeder; unaware of the fact that it has a definite meaning in 

 entomology, and that, while originally applied by Aristotle to an Egyp- 



81 " Xotos on Observations made during tiie Late Locust Plague." Report of tlie Secretary for Agri- 

 culture, Melbourne, 1873. 



