20 MISC. PUBLICATION 174, U.S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTUEE 



the abdomen ; marginal cilia short, discal cilia sparse and weak on basal one 

 third of wing, the weakly ciliated area produced medially to near middle of 

 wing; hind wing practically bare from base to hooklets, moderately ciliated 

 beyond hooklets ; marginal cilia longest on posterior margin of wing between 

 base and hooklets, where they are longer than half the greatest width of wing. 

 Legs normal. Abdomen about as long as head and thorax and as broad as 

 thorax, distinctly dorsoventrally compressed behind the middle ; first tergite bare 

 except for a few hairs laterally, approximately as long as broad, longitudinally 

 striated and with a distinct transverse depression near middle and a transverse 

 ridge near base ; second tergite bare, about as long as all the following combined, 

 a little longer than broad, longitudinally striated medially at base for approxi- 

 mately one third of its length, remainder of its surface smooth and polished ; 

 tergites beyond the second smooth and polished and each with a transverse 

 row of very weak hairs ; basal sternite more or less distinctly hairy. 



Color deep shining black; mandibles testaceous; antennae brownish black, 

 with the radicle yellow; legs variable, usually dark brownish testaceous, but 

 sometimes nearly black with the trochanters and tarsi reddish ; wings hyaline. 



Male. — Length 1.15 mm. Antennae a little longer and more slender than 

 in the female, with the second flagellar joint obviously thicker than the first 

 and a little larger than the third ; joints 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of flagellum separated 

 by a short but distinct pedicel; eighth joint about three times as long as thick; 

 abdomen not longer than thorax, rounded at apex and not flattened apically. 

 Otherwise like the female. 



REVIEW OF LITERATURE 



Platygaster error was described and figured by Fitch in 1861 from 

 specimens taken in association with the wheat midge, Contarinia 

 tritici (Kirby), in New York State. Although occurring with the 

 midge on wheat, the species was not known by Fitch to be a parasite 

 of that insect. In fact, in a postscript to his original remarks on 

 the species he expressed the belief that it was parasitic in the eggs 

 of a hemipteron, this opinion being based on some fragments which 

 had been removed from an egg and which Fitch identified as 

 p e rror. The report of the entomologist of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture for 1880 records P. error as a parasite of the 

 clover seed midge, Dasyneura leguminicola Lintner, in New York. 2 

 In 1880 and again in 1883 Packard doubtfully identified as P. error 

 a parasite of the hessian fly, but this parasite is now known to have 

 been P. herrickii, as has been pointed out in the discussion of that 

 species. In these same articles Packard also mentioned Fitch's 

 observations on the true error. In the course of a discussion of 

 P. herrickii as a parasite of the hessian fly, Riley in 1885 3 repeated 

 Fitch's record that error was parasitic in the eggs of a hemipterous 

 insect, and this article was briefly reviewed by Packard in 1885 4 and 

 by Riley in 1886. 5 In 1891 the species was transferred to the genus 

 Anopedias by Riley and recorded as having been reared from 

 (Diplosis) Contarinia tritici at La Fayette, Inch, this being the first 

 definite record of it from the wheat midge. Ashmead redescribed the 

 species in his monograph of the family Proctotrypidae in 1893, plac- 

 ing it in the genus Anopedias. He based his description upon speci- 

 mens reared from the wheat midge by Webster at La Fayette, Ind., 

 stated that Fitch's identification of error as a parasite in hemip- 

 terous eggs was certainly erroneous, and expressed the belief that 

 the fragments studied by Fitch were undoubtedly those of some 



2 Comstock, U.S. Dept. Agr. Rpt. Ent. 1879 : 196, 1880. 



3 Riley, U.S. Natl. Mus. Proc. (1885) 8: 420, 1886. 



4 Packard, Amer. Nat. 19 : 1104, 1885. 



5 Riley, Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. Proc. (1885) 34: 333, 1886, 



