Notes on Parasitic Hymenoptera

Extract

During the past fifteen years the attention of Economic Entomologists in Central America and the West Indies has been increasingly directed to the damage done by species of the genus Brassolis to the foliage of coconut and other palms. In some of the scattered papers (q.v. Review of Applied Entomology, Series A, 1913–22) dealing with these ravages one finds references to the natural control exercised by Hymenopterous parasites. So far as I am aware the only writers to mention by name any of these enemies are C.Schrottky (1909) and G. E. Bodkin (1917), who list four species between them. Since the spring of 1920 I have examined two small collections of Hymenopterous parasites of Brassolis from Trinidad and British Guiana respectively. In each of these the same one of Schrottky's species is represented, and in all I am now able to list seven species. Two of these have not been seen by me, and two more (Brachymeria and Spilochalcis) are probably recognisable from extant descriptions. In the case of the Telenomus it is hoped that the figures given may facilitate recongnition. Though Ashmead's description of this species is very incomplete, I have forborne for the present to supplement it, since the diagnosis of these minute parasites for any particular geographical area can be attempted best in a comparative key. only the Anastatus has been fully described.