PARASITES HIBERNATING IN BROWN-TAIL WEBS. 
283 
hoped to secure 10 times that number at the very least. The few 
thai were reared were placed in the Held in accordance with the pro- 
gram mapped out the winter before, just about the time when the 
new generation of brown-tail caterpillars was beginning to construct 
winter nests, and when there was no possible excuse for failure on the 
part of the Apanteles to reproduce to the full extent of its powers. 
In so far as the puny colony thus planted could possibly be expected 
to succeed, this one was a success. Quite a number of cocoons was 
found the next spring in tin 4 molting webs of the caterpillars from 
the near-by nests and it was evident that if the Apanteles had been 
reared as successfully at this season of the year as it had been hoped 
would be the case, no betier plan for the rearing and colonization of 
the species could be devised. 
There was no possibility of judging the success or failure of the 
Apanteles colonies of 1908 until the following Bpring at the earliest, 
and whether they succeeded or failed it was obviously desirable to 
continue the work at Leasl one year more. Accordingly, more nests 
were imported in the winter of 1908 9, and from among them those 
which were the most highly parasitized were selected for rearing 
the Apanteles. No attempts to establish colonies out of season were 
made t his t ime. 
Partly as a result of experience gained the year before, partly 
because more caterpillars were fed, and partly because several among 
the lots of Dests received this year were very heavily parasitized, the 
number of Apanteles reared and colonized was about 23,000, or twice 
the number of the year before. They were distributed in three colo- 
nies, one of which was near the site of the only successful late spring 
planting of L908. There was do apparent necessity for this, but the 
accuracy of the theory of the large colony and establishment at any 
cost was becoming more and more evident, and it was resolved to leb 
no opportunity slip by which a possible advantage might be lost. 
The two remaining outlying colonies were each as large as the suc- 
cessful colony of 1908, and Apanteles was recovered in the spring of 
1910 in the vicinity of both. 
[Jy the spring of 1909 the pteromalid, which had commonly been 
reared from the Apanteles cocoons, was identified beyond question as 
Pteromalus egregius. It was found that the females persistently 
haunted the trays in which the caterpillars were feeding, and that 
they were very free in ovipositing in the cocoons of Apanteles when- 
ever they encountered them. It was discovered, furthermore, that 
if tin 1 weather w as hot and humidity low, the Apanteles larva or pupa 
in the cocoon attacked would die and dry up before the Pteromalus 
was full-fed, so that nothing would emerge. A few of the unhatched 
cocoons, of which there were more than 25 per cent in the summer of 
190S, were saved and examined after these facts were known, and in 
