Last year I reported P. vespoides (Cr.) a pollen- provisioning wasp and gave some additional facts in regard to its nesting habits and biology. Since that time I have further verified these facts, both in California and in Colorado, and have in addition taken many nests of a smaller species, P. edwardsii Cr.*, at and near Pasadena and Sierra Madre, California. This species according to Bradley ('22) is found in Utah, Nevada, California and Washington.

In an earlier volume (I) the writer presented observations on the bionomics of the parasites and inquilines from the galls of Disholcaspis mamma (Walsh) on a bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) near Urbana, Illinois. Not less than fifteen species of Hymenoptera were then associated with that gall. In the last two years this gall and its several inhabitants were rare or lacking there, but the leaf galls of Neuroterus verrucarum O.S. and N. niger Gillette were abundant on the same tree. The larvae of the latter cynipids are heavily parasitized by a chalcid, Tetrastichus verrucarii Balduf of the family Tetrastichidae. Observations on the habits and stages of the parasite and its hosts are given below. These records incidentally extend the known hymenopterous fauna of the above tree by four or more species.

Black; parafacials and cheeks yelllow; frontal vitta obscure reddish on lower half. Length, 5 to 5.5 mm.

♂. ♀. Face and cheeks white, the occiput and parafrontals, greyish pollinose; frontal vitta with thin whitish pollen in some views. Palpi and antennae blackish. Thorax cinereous pollinose, with darker vittae from posterior view ; acrosticals in two rows; hair black; apical pair of scutellars as long as basal pair, cruciate. Legs black, thinly cinereous pollinose; tibiae sometimes brownish. Wings cinereous; veins brownish red: first vein setose on apical section. Abdomen thinly greyish pollinose. Outer genital forceps with two angular productions apically (fig. I). Female genitalia shining black.

The vestiture is of two kinds : The first consists of narrow flattened hair-like scales found in the striae, one before each puncture; these are closely appressed to the elytra. The second consists of a very dense covering of flat scales, broadly elliptical in shape, covering densely the elytra, the thorax, the under side of the body, the head except for the beak, the legs except for the under surface of the tarsi which are covered with black pubescence.

Length 4.4 mm. Black, shilling, margin of elytra feebly greenish, appendages slightly rufescent. Head as wide as pronotum at apex. Pronotum narrower than elytra, 70 per cent. ( ♀ ) to 74 per cent. ( ♂ ) as long as broad, apex 74 per cent., base 80 per cent. as wide as pronotum at widest. Sides of pronotum broadly arcuate in front, feebly sinuate behind : front angles round ; hind angles right ; apex feebly emarginate; basal impressions bistriate; median line nearly entire. Elytra octostriate; the striae entire, three and four and five and six severally confluent towards apex; the third stria with two dorsal punctures; the striae coarsely punctate, the punctures absent on apical fifth; the eighth and marginal striae evidently finely punctate, distant from each other except on basal fourth.

Male blackish, closely resembling latipennis Zett.; head black, parafrontals, parafacials, and cheeks velvety whitish pruinescent ; antennae and palpi black. Thorax lightly grayish pruinose, subshining, scutellum viewed from behind grayish (not blackish), mesonotum with three brownish vittae, and lateral areas considerably infuscated. Abdomen whitish pruinose, pearlaceous, with dark reflections; dorsocentral vitta black, each tergal portion, when viewed from behind, slightly broadened cephalad; tergal incisures not evident; hypopygium with basal sclerites black, shining, the caudal (prebasal) sclerite thinly grayish pollinose not glossy. Legs black, subsliining. Wings tinged with yellow, especially basad; calyptrae and halteres yellowish.