402 
ending considerably below the extreme apex of the wing ; small cross vein straight 
and nearly on a line with the second vein ; anterior fork of the third vein (the true 
fifth vein, since the third and fourth are absent), nearly twice as long as the posterior 
branch. 
Female. — Same as the $ with these exceptions : Antennae only one-fourth longer 
than the body, joints 3 to 14 subcylindrical, slightly constricted at the middle, con- 
siderably narrowed at the apex of each, this portion of the sixth joint equaling 
one-half of the thickened part of the joint, but on the fourteenth joint it is only one- 
eighth as long as the thickened part; each joint from 3 to 14 bears on the thickened 
portion a basal and an apical whorl of rather long bristly hairs. 
Length, 1 to 1.8 mm . Four males and fifteen females. 
AN INJURIOUS PARASITE. 
By L. O. Howard. 
Fig. 46. — Leucodesmia typica : female, with head of male below at right — greatly enlarged (original). 
It is a pity that the energetic parasites of the family Chalcididae do 
not confine their attacks to injurious insects. The great majority of 
the species are parasitic upon injurious forms. Many, however, lay 
their eggs in beneficial insects, and thus become injurious species them- 
selves. It is an example of this class which we shall describe in this 
note. 
In 1879 Prof. J. H. Comstock called attention for the first time to 
the good which was occasionally done by the predaceous larva of a 
lepidopterous insect, which he described in the North American Ento- 
mologist as Dakruma coccidivora, by feeding upon our larger scale 
insects. The first specimens observed by Comstock were feeding upon 
the cottony maple scale (Pulvinaria innumerabilis) at Washington, So 
