39 
The value of one of the parasites of this moth as a counteractive 
against the overproduction of its destructive host is exemplified in the 
instance cited by Mr. Sydney T. Klein in the Transactions of the Ento- 
mological Society of London for 1887 (proa, p. liii) and referred to 
elsewhere, wherein it is related that a species which he states belonged 
to the Ichneumonidae was instrumental in checking the ravages of the 
flour moth in London warehouses which it had invaded, and this when 
other means employed to dislodge it had failed. Just which species 
this might have been is not quite clear, but evidently either Bracon 
brevicornis or Ghremylm rubiginosus, and presumably the former, as 
Mr. Archibald Giekie is quoted (Bull. Seances Soc. Ent. France, 1893, 
clxxviii) as having observed the complete destruction of the Ephestia 
by this parasite. This record is said to have been published, together 
with illustrations of both sexes of the parasite, in the County Middle- 
sex "Natural and Sciences" Society of November 8, 1887. 
February 14, 1893, Mr. Coquillett received from Mr. J. F. Mclntyre, 
county commissioner of horticulture of Ventura County, Cal., speci- 
mens of Ephestia luelinieila with living braconid larvae and their white 
silken cocoons found in 
beehives at Fillmore, 
that county. February 
20 an Ephestia larva was 
received from the same 
source with a braconid 
larva attached to its 
body. January 8, 1895, 
we again received this 
species from the same 
source, in pieces of old 
honeycomb infested by 
the bee moth, Oalleria 
meUonella Linn., the ma- 
jority of the latter being 
parasitized by it. Two 
of the male parasites 
were noticed feeding upon the wax, and one of the females, alter copu- 
lation, at once entered one of the cells near the caterpillars. 
November 24 a dead female was taken by the writer from a sort of 
receptacle that had been formed by its host in an English walnut 
(Juglans regia). The host caterpillar was dry and so badly shriveled 
as to be unrecognizable: but after boiling it and then subjecting it to 
the action of dilute acetic acid 1 was enabled to recognize it as the 
larva of a moth which 1 have identified as Ephestia cahiritella /ell. and 
which later bred from this same lot of nuts. 
A month later we received a very full series o\' the insect from the 
Atlanta Exposition, where they were collected in jars o\' cacao beans 
from Maracaibo, Venezuela, and Trinidad, West Indies, infested with 
Fig. 10. — Hadrobracon hebetor: adult female— antenna of male at 
left— greatly enlarged (original). 
