170 



larvae of Uroceridse or other borers, tbey do not commoDly do so. In 

 every case that he observed the ovipositor entered through wood that i 

 had not been previously attacked, aud iu his opinion the egg is often, 

 if not generally, laid regardless of contact with the larva. He con- I 

 eluded that if the Ichneumouid larvi^e are carnivorous they must bore in 

 search of food, as he thought it improbable that the adults performed I 

 the great labor of boring ou the chance of meeting with a larva, but I 

 rather that they deposit eggs at every insertion. 



In 1881 the question was brought up again by Mr. George Gade, of 

 Fordham, N. Y. who had made i^ractically the same observations as Mr^ 

 Glarkson, but who drew the strikingly erroneous conclusions that Tha 

 lessa is lignivorous and not parasitic. He is reported to have stated 

 at the meeting of the Brooklyn Entomological Society, held September 

 27, 1884 (see Bulletin Brooklyn Entom. Soc, Vol. VII, Nov., 1884, page J 

 103), that he had long doubted the parasitic habit of the species. He 

 remarked : 



I have, during the past season, watched many females oripositiug, aud have cut off ■, 

 the ovipositor when ready to he withdrawn, and in no instance have I found a larva 

 of any kind anywhere near the jjoint reached hy the horer and where the egg was 

 dei)osited. The conclusion is, therefore, that the larva is a true wood-feeder, and not 

 parasitic. 



In the discussion which followed Messrs. George D. Hulst, and A. C. 

 Weeks are stated to have announced that they had reached the same 

 conclusion from independent observation. 



At the December meeting of the Entomological Society of Washington 

 we commented upou this report of Mr. Gade's observations, and later 

 wrote to the editors of the Brooklyn Bulletin a letter which was pub- 

 lished in the January (1885) number (page 123), giving the results of 

 our own observation, and quoting the following letter, which we liad 

 previously written to Mr. J. A. Lintner, and which he published in an 

 article o^ his own in the Country Gentleman for April 17, 1884 (vol. 

 XLIX, page 331): 



I have on several occasions had opportunity of closely studying not only the mode 

 of oviposition, hut of larval growth of Jihyssa. My sketches aud notes are at home 

 [written from Boscawen, N. H.], hut the salient facta hearing ou your question I can 

 give from memory. In all instances where I have found the foiualo dei)0sitiug, it has 

 heen in trees infested with Tremcx cohonha, and I have found her most numerous on 

 badly affected or injured trees, or even on stumps or broken trunks already partly de- 

 cayed. The instinct to reach the egg or larva of Tremex, so dwelt upon in popular 

 accounts, is imaginary. She bores directly through the outer pnrts of the tree, and 

 doubtless probes for a burrow ; but her egg is consigned anywhere iu the burrow; 

 the young larva seeks its prey, and lives and dev('l()})s without penetrating the 

 body of its victim, but fastened to the exterior. This habit among ]>arasites is much 

 more common than is generally supposed. A great many IihysHa larvae doubtless ]>er- 

 ish wilhout finding food, and a grent many females die in }>robing for a burrow, 

 especially when they burrow through wood that is sound and hard. 



We also published in Science, November 28, 1884 (Vol. IV, No. 95, 

 page 480), a note making the same criticism. 



