A STUDY OF COMPSILURA CONCINNATA. 9 
These trays are carefully examined and all of the Compsilura 
puparia removed and counted every two or three days, records being 
kept under the locality number. As these puparia are removed they 
are kept in a cool place until a sufficient number, 500, is secured, 
when they are ready to be sent to some point for colonization. 
DISCUSSION OF CLASSIFICATION OF 
COMPSILURA CONCINNATA. 
The parasitic Diptera, which include Tachinidae, 
are classified according to structure and method of 
attack. Method of attack is governed by the struc- 
ture of the insect, and J. Pantel, in “ La Cellule,” 
Volume I, has classified these parasites, grouping 
them in the form of a key, according to structure. 
As this entire classification is too lengthy for re- y.4 9 compsitura 
production here, the writer will give merely an ex- —concinnata: Ovari- 
aes *7 ole of adult female 
tract of the group containing Compsilura. dreieatehidte: 
Group VII. Species which, by means of distinct Greatly enlarged. 
perforating and laying instruments, insert hatched ate es 
larve, or those about to hatch, in the body of the host. 
Enumeration of species. General host index. 
Compsilura concinnata Meig. A very long list of caterpillars and 
Dexodes nigripes Fall. false caterpillars. (Pantel here notes 
Vibrissina demissa Rond. that he has bred them from 12 (spe- 
cies) bombycid caterpillars (Town- 
send).) 
While Compsilura is moderately fecund, each female deposits 
larvee singly beneath the skin of the host. The ovaries, at the time 
of hatching, form an obconic bundle consisting, on an average, of 
14 ovarioles or strings of developing eggs, and each ovariole con- 
taining, on an average, 8 developing eggs. (Fig. 2.) These averages 
were arrived at from dissections of 50 sexually mature females. 
This would make the reproductive capacity of Compsilura approach 
225, but this total is not reached, as a general thing, as dissections 
of adults, which were three to four weeks old, have shown. A series 
of dissections have shown that the average reproductive capacity of 
Compsilura is from 90 to 110 larve. 
The paired oviducts leading from the ovaries into the anterior 
uterus, the three spermathece, and the accessory glands are shown 
in the illustration of the reproductive system of an unfertilized 
female (fig. 3). The posterior uterus in an unfertilized female is a 
short, nearly straight passageway which is empty, but which, when 
the female becomes gravid, elongates, as the developing young de- 
scend, into a long intestine-like incubating organ leading to the larvi- 
_positor. These developing larve are arranged transversely for about 
95537 °—Bull. 766—19—2 
