43 



was found was a youug specimen of Steadota horeaUs Hentz. The 

 larva was slender, cylindrical, white, 1 millimeter in leuo'th, and was 

 very firml^^ attached to the front of the dorsum of the abdomen of the 

 spider in a transverse position. Mr. Fitch, in the article above men- 

 tioned, quotes observations by De Geer, Westwood, Blackwall, Laboul- 

 bene, Snellen van Yollenhoven, Brischke, and Parfitt, and records two 

 new instances from specimens found by E^ev. H. Matthews and Mr. G. 

 0. Biguell. In the same volume Eev. O. P. Cambridge records two 

 further instances from his own observations. 



It is a very common thing to rear parasites from the egg-bags of 

 spiders, but much rarer to find parasitic larvae feeding upon the adult 

 spiders ; still from the instances mentioned above such cases have not 

 infrequently been observed in Europe. Mr. Fitch makes the sweeping 

 statement that the species of the genera Polysphincta and Acrodac 

 tyla '• are probably exclusively spider vami)ires, " and so positively 

 does he rely on this generalization that he states that Brischke's record 

 of Folysphiiwta carhonarius from a saw-fly is probably an error. In 

 this, however, he is probably at fault, for there are other European 

 records of the rearing of Folyspliincta from saw-flies and from longi- 

 corn larvae, and in this country' Professor Eilej^ has several species of this 

 genus which have been bred from lepidopterous larvai. Moreover, the 

 P. albipes of Cresson was bred by Comstock from a lepidopterous co- 

 coon found on an orange leaf in Florida (Kept. Dept. Agr., 1879, p. 

 208). 



THE SWEET-POTATO SAW-FLY. 



{Schizocertis chemis Norton.) 



[Order Hymenoptera ; family Texthredinid^.] 



In the summer of 1886 Mr. C. Werckle, of Ocean Springs, Miss., 

 wrote us that a neighbor was troubled with worms which destroyed his 

 sweet-potato crop, and in August, 1887, he was able to secure speci- 

 mens, which he forwarded to the Division, and from which we were 

 enabled to determine the insect as a rather rare Saw-fly, described by 

 Norton in 18G7 from male specimens collected in New York as Schizoce- 

 rus ehenus (see Trans. Amer. Entom. Soc, Yol. I, page oo). The first 

 installment sent by Mr. Werckle consisted of pui)?e only. These were 

 received August 18, 1887, and from them adults issued August 19. 

 September C larvae were received from him, possibly of another brood, 

 and from these adults issued September 19. We also, at the same time, 

 reared from the cocoons a Braconid parasite belonging to the genus 

 Eubadizon^ differing from any species of this genus hitherto described 

 in this country and which we shall describe in a more ai>propriate place 



