226 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 



The Proctotrypoidea] aB.d_Cynipoidea in the collection will be described in another 

 paper. 



In this contribution I have restricted myself to elucidating the chalcid-flies and 

 have divided it into two parts. The first part is devoted to a classification of the 

 superfamily Chalcidoidea ; the second part deals with the South American Chalci- 

 doidea. In this latter part, besides my report upon the Herbert H. Smith collection, 

 the descriptions of the new genera and species, is given a complete bibliographical 

 catalogue of all the known South American species. 



PART I. CLASSIFICATION OF THE CHALCID-FLIES, OR THE 

 SUPERFAMILY CHALCIDOIDEA. 



Among the ten great groups or superfamilies of the Hymenoptera, recognized by 

 the author, there is none so large numerically, more important economically, or so 

 difficult to study and classify as the superfamily Chalcidoidea or the Chalcid-flies. 

 The species exist everywhere not by hundreds, but by thousands and millions, and 

 they are probably of far greater importance, from an economic standpoint, than are 

 the Ichneumonoidea or ichneumon-flies. 



Only a few of them, comparatively speaking, are in any sense injurious, a single 

 minor group, the tribe Isosomini, in the family Eurytomidse, alone being injurious 

 to vegetation. All the others, except the fig-insects forming the family Agaonidx, 

 the MegastigminsR, a subfamily in the Torymidse, and some few hyperparasitic 

 genera in different families, being genuine parasites and beneficial to man. It is 

 true, however, that some of the chalcid-flies destroy a few beneficial insects, but the 

 vast majority of the known species destroy mostly the injurious species in the 

 other orders, i. e., the Coleoptera, the Lepidoptera, the Diptera, the Rliynchota, 

 etc.; they attack the eggs, the larvse, and the pupse, and in some cases even the 

 imagoes of their hosts, and their value to many great industries of the world cannot 

 easily be estimated. Who, for example, can estimate the value of the fig-insects to 

 the fig industry of the United States ? Through the efforts of Dr. L. O. Howard 

 and Mr. W. T. Swingle, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, the caprifier of the 

 Smyrna fig, Blastophaga psenes Linne {grossorum Gravenhorst), has been successfully 

 introduced into the fig-orchards of California, and the experiments already made 

 fully demonstrate the great value this little chalcid-fly has to the fig industry. It 

 is evidently destined to revolutionize fig-growing in the United States, making it 

 exceedingly profitable, and, on account of the superiority of the American-grown 



