affecting the Com- Crops. 
497 
2. Platygaster ? inserens, Kirby. " Very black ; antennae 
clubbed; abdomen lance-shaped, shining:"* fig. 2; c, the natural 
size. — Female, body very black : antennae bent, as if broken, and 
clubbed ; basal joint long, stout, rigid, and clavate, reverse heart- 
shaped, cleft at the apex viewed laterally ; second joint stout, oval-, 
4 following globular and extremely minute, the remainder forming 
a compact ovate conic club of 4 joints (fig. d) : head and thorax 
somewhat dull in surface : abdomen sessile, lanceolate, excessively 
black and glossy, very acute, furnished with a very long flexile 
slender ovipositor, which is exserted (fig. c) ; wings transparent, 
nerveless, longer than the l)ody ; superior with a black line leading 
from the ba«e towards the middle terminated by a black dot : legs 
blackish; thighs deep black, somewhat clavate ; length less than 
a line. 
The tliird parasite detected by Mr. Kirby appeared on the 
same day tliat the Platygaster Tipulce came forth in great num- 
bers. He states that, "on the 22nd of June, 1 observed another 
Ichneumon not uncommon piercing the florets of the wheat (figs. 3 
and 4). This species did not appear to insert its aculeus between 
the valvules of the corolla, but to pierce the glumes of the calyx, 
to effect which purpose it is armed with a very short one sub- 
exserted : of this I found both the sexes; the male was distin- 
guished from the female by its large eyes, placed very near each 
other, with reticulations vmusually visible. I presume this to lay 
its eggs in the larvae, but have not been able positively to ascertain 
the fact."! 
This singular species has been characterised as the Genus Ma- 
CROGLENEs by Mr. Westwood, and I am happy in being able to 
give drawings from nature of the sexes, as the figure in the Lin- 
naean Transactions is not sufficiently correct to identify it. J Mr. 
Westwood, however, has examined Mr. Kirby's original specimen 
of Ichneumon penetrans, and informs me that it is identical with his 
Genus Macroglenes, which is comprised in the Family Chal- 
ciDiD^, a parasitic group of immense extent as to amount of 
species, and scarcely yielding in numbers to any of the insect 
tribes as to aggregate masses. I have already described and 
figured several species of Chalcidid(B ; they frequently inliabit and 
feed upon the parasitic larvae of Hymenoptera, to keep them within 
due bounds. 
3. Macroglenes penetrans. — The maleh dark blue-green, some- 
times slightly tinged with violet, shining ; antennae not so long as 
the head and thorax, geniculated and clavate, ten-jointed, basal 
• Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. v. p. 107. t lb., p. 104. 
t Mr. Haliday presented me with a male ; for the loan of the other sex 
I am indebted to Mr. F. Walker. 
