1941] 
Habits of Eucharidae 
65 
sucked out, leaving only the white collapsed skin. Accord- 
ing to Parker this occurs also in Stilbula cyniformis. 
Wheeler has pointed out that the Orasema larva consumes 
only a portion of the body contents of the Pheidole prepupa, 
and that the latter may still be alive after the completion of 
feeding by the parasite. Eucharis scutellaris likewise only 
partially exhausts the available food supply in the host 
body, though death of the host occurs before the parasite 
larva is mature. 
The complete consumption of the pupal contents by sev- 
eral species indicates an appreciable amount of preoral 
digestion. It is improbable that suctorial action alone, 
through a single minute feeding puncture, could accomplish 
such a complete withdrawal of the body contents without a 
more thorough liquefaction than normally takes place dur- 
ing the period covered by the feeding of the third-instar 
parasite. 
Parker has called attention to the apparently complete 
lack of tegumentary muscles in the mature larva of Stilbula 
cyniformis, and states that no indication of muscular action 
could be detected at any time. The same is true of S. tenui- 
cornis, but in several of the other species mentioned above 
feeble contractions were observed in the younger larvae of 
this stage. In no instance was there any movement of the 
body as a whole. 
When the mature larvae are examined it is found that the 
cast skins are present and adhere closely in a characteristic 
way. In all species examined, with the exception of Stilbula 
tenuicornis, the two adhere ventrally to the thoracic and 
anterior abdominal segments. They are readily recogniz- 
able because of the darkened segmental bands of the first 
exuviae. The line formed by these widely separated bands 
is transverse in Chalcura deprivata and diagonal in Schiza- 
spidia convex yens and Eucharis scutellaris. The head of 
the first exuviae is detached and remains fixed in the feeding 
puncture in the skin of the host pupa. In Schizaspidia 
tenuicornis only the second exuviae are present in this posi- 
tion, as the first are cast before pupation of the host and 
remain attached to the larval skin of the latter. 
In the majority of species which develop upon hosts that 
