422 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
I 
CURRANT. STALKS. 
eggs the larva of the borer will be grown to a sufficient size to meet 
their wants. For with such forethought and skill has Omniscience 
appointed the times and seasons of every creature, that each little 
insect comes into existence upon the very day that its food is in 
readiness and everything is matured for it to fulfill its allotted 
work in the economy of nature. 
This parasite of the currant borer is a small four-winged fly 
pertaining to the order Hymenoptera the family Ichneumonidce and 
the sub-family Bracomdes. It is 0.10 long, black, the first joints 
of its antennae and its feelers and legs deep honey-yellow, its 
mouth, fore-breast and the two first segments of the abdomen 
darker yellow with a black spot on the first of these segments, 
and with a yellowish cloud upon the middle of the third segment, 
the under side of the abdomen being black-brown. Its oviposi¬ 
tor resembles a small bristle and is about a third of the 
length of the abdomen. It is probable that as this insect walks 
up and down upon a currant stalk with its antennae applied to 
the surface and rapidly vibrating, the sense of feeling possessed 
by these organs is of such exquisite delicacy that it is able to 
detect the very spot where a small worm is lying in the centre of 
the stalk, and that it then insinuates its ovipositor through the 
bark and wood and punctures the skin of the worm, inserting 
therein as many eggs as the borer will be able to sustain. 
I have attached the name Ccnocwlius ? liibis to this insect in my cabinet. 
The prsodiscoidal cell of the fore wings occupies but two-thirds of the length 
of the oblique vein which bounds its anterior side, the first submarginnl cell 
occupying the remainder of this vein, thus separating the prasdiscoidal cell 
widely from the costa. This induces me to refer this insect to the genusCeno 
ccrlius of Westwood’s Synopsis, though I am by no means certain that it is 
congeneric with the undescribed species named as the type of that genus. The 
feelers are very slender and elongated, the maxillarics being longer than the 
head and about equal in length to the anterior thighs. The head is nearly as 
long as broad and sub-globular. The antennae are slender and almost as long 
as the body. The abdomen is obovate or nearly oval, slightly depressed, 
equaling the thorax in length and exceeding it in width. 
It should be observed before leaving this subject, that lam 
uncertain whether this insect is the destroyer of the American^ 
or of the European currant borer. Though there were several ot 
the American borers in the currant stalk in which I met with 
