APANTELES MELANOSCELUS GIPSY-MOTH PARASITE. 3 
DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE. 
Apanteles melanoscelus is probably present over most of Europe. 
Specimens have been received at the Gipsy Moth Laboratory from 
Vienna, Austria ; Sicily, Italy ; Bendery, Kussia ; and from Saxony, 
Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Rhenish Prussia, Germany. 
DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES. 
It is evident that solitarius and melanoscelus are closely related, 
and in time it may be shown that they are the same. If such should 
prove to be the case, the name melanoscelus would have to go, as 
solitarius has the priority. For the present they are to be considered 
as distinct species, and as Eatzeburg's 8 description of A. melanoscelus 
is very meager, the following new description has been prepared. 9 
Female. 
Length 3 mm. Face feebly shagreened and strongly shiny, with a weak 
median welt below insertion of antennae ; vertex, temples, and cheeks shagreened, 
pilose, shiny ; mesoscntum shallowly, sometimes indistinctly punctate and shiny ; 
scutellum with the disk very slightly convex, smooth, and polished ; mesopleurae 
smooth and highly polished, with only a few punctures anteriorly and below, 
and a conspicuous weakly crenulate depression posteriorly ; propodeum rugose 
except at base, strongly shiny, and with a prominent median longitudinal carina ; 
forewing with stigma large and with the radius very distinctly longer than the 
transverse cubitus ; posterior coxae large, smooth, and shiny, with a conspicuous 
flattened area on outer edge at base ; spurs of posterior tibiae equal in length 
and about half as long as the metatarsus. Abdomen stout ; entirely shiny ; first 
tergite broader at apex than at base, rugose punctate ; second broad, rectangu- 
lar, more or less roughened, without distinct lateral membranous margins ; 
third tergite with the rugosity usually confined to the extreme base ; remainder 
of abdomen polished; ovipositor hardly exserted ; hypopygium not extending 
beyond apex of last dorsal segment. Black; antennae entirely black; tegulae 
black ; wings hyaline, the stigma dark brown ; all coxae and trochanters black, 
except sometimes apex of the latter; base of fore femora usually, basal half 
of middle femora, and most of the posterior femora black or blackish ; apical 
fourth of hind tibiae and the hind tarsi dusky ; sides and venter of the 
abdomen black. (PI. I, A.) 
Male. 
Essentially as in the female. Differs only in the longer antennae, in the 
usually darker legs, and in the basal abdominal tergites being less roughened. 
The species is exceedingly close to A. solitarius Ratzeburg, but 
apparently the differences are sufficiently well marked and sufficiently 
constant to justify holding the two forms distinct. In A. solitarius 
the antennae are brownish testaceous toward base, the legs, with the 
exception of the coxa? and the basal trochanters, are practically en- 
* Ratzeburg, Julius Theodor Christian, op. cit. 1844. 
9 The description and translations of references Nos. 3 and 5 were made by Mr. C. F. W. 
Muesebeck. 
