NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 725 
images for drawing, instead of disclosing the butterfly, gave out a 
number of small flies from each. Some of them having been 
brought to me in compliance with my request, I was delighted to 
find them to be of the genus Pteromalus which includes so many 
of our valued parasitic friends, and probably of the species which 
has been found so serviceable in Europe, in destroying the several 
cabbage butterflies there existing — viz., the Pt. puparum of Lin- 
neeus. 
From the close resemblance which many of the Pteromali bear 
to one another, it is not safe to assert positively that we have 
really been favored with the importation of the European parasite, 
to aid in the work of subjugation of the European pest, but 
should further examination prove this to be the case, it will be not 
only a most interesting event in its scientific aspect, but also in 
the pecuniary results which must necessarily follow it. 
In another number, I may give your readers the observations — 
quite limited, I regret — which I have been able to make on this 
welcome parasite. — J. A. Lintner, N. Y. State Museum of Nat. 
Hist. 
[We have also raised this parasite in considerable abundance 
and also received specimens from Vermont. We have likewise 
reared a Dipterous parasite from the cocoons. — Eps. ] 
Tue Fauna or Mapacascar.—M. Alfred Grandidier has re- 
cently returned from his third voyage of discovery to Madagascar, 
and has shown that the riches and eccentricities of its fauna have 
not yet been exhausted. His collections, which have only recently 
reached the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, although brought to 
France before the political storm of last year commenced, have 
not yet been fully examined. But they are said to include very 
full series of several species of Lemuridæ, the comparison of 
which is likely to lead to important results, besides examples of a 
new genus of Rodentia, and many other mammals of high inter- 
est. M. Grandidier has also paid much attention to the fossil de- 
posits of Southern Madagascar, which contain the remains of the 
extinct gigantic bird, Æpyornis maxima, and has arrived at some 
important results (such as the former presence of Hippopotamus 
in Madagascar), which may ultimately tend to modify some of the 
views generally held concerning the true nature of the fauna of 
this island and its origin. — A. W. B. 
