354 



Though these are extremely interesting occurrences, and show that 

 some species of Anthrax may prove of benefit in destroying cut-worms, 

 they are not without precedent, as the group to which the species belongs 

 is, according to Osten Sacken, known to prey normally on the pupae of 

 Lepidoptera, especially Noctuae. In number of species this group is 

 about equally represented in Europe and this country, and we find that 

 this Lepidopterous parasitism, in regard to which both Osten Sacken 

 and Schiner make only a generalized statement, was recorded by Zet- 

 terstedt as early as 1842. Meigen in 1820 stated that nothing was 

 known of the early stages of Anthrax; Westwood in 1840, in his Intro 

 duction, mentions only its Hymenopterous parasitism ; but Zettersterit 

 in the Diptera Scandinavian, writing in 1842, states that the eggs of the 

 first section of the genus, which embraces the species with hyaline 

 wings and the tomeutum not entirely black (A. flava Meig., A. circum- 

 data Meig., and A. cingulata Meig.), are deposited in the larvae of Lepi- 

 doptera. Walker in 1851 makes the same statement in the Insecta Bri- 

 tannica, that some of the species are parasitic in Lepidopterous larvae. 

 In the second report of the U. S. Entomological Commission, p. 266, we 

 have referred to Schiner's statement (as quoted by Osten Sacken) that 

 the larvae of the very nearly allied genus Argyramoeba were parasitic in 

 Lepidopterous pupae, which fact has also been referred to by late Ger- 

 man writers (Entomologische Nachrichten, 18<S5 7 p. 306). Osten Sacken 

 refers particularly to this parasitism of Anthrax in the Biologia Cen- 

 trali-Americana, published in 1886, where he states that a certain group 

 of the genus is especially parasitic upon the Noctuae. Glover in his 

 MS. Notes on the Diptera, aud also in Agricultural Beport for 1866, 

 states that " an Anthrax has been bred from the chrysalis of a moth." 



Fig. 67 .—Anthrax hypomelas: a, larva from side; b, pupal skill protruding from cut-worm chrysa- 

 lis; c, pupa; d, imago — all enlarged (original). 



