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ASTATA. 69 



7. Astata mexicana. 



Astata mexicana, Cresson, Proc. Ent. section Ac. Phil, in Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. ix. p. v'. 

 Hab. Mexico (Sumichrast 1 ). 



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8. Astata alpestris. (Tab. V. figg. 4; 4 a, head from in front; 4 5, antenna.) 



Mgra, abdomine rufo ; sparse punctata, longe albo-villosa ; segmento mediali striolato ; aKs hyalinis, apice 



fumatis. § . 

 Long. 8| millim. 



Hab. Mexico, Omilteme in Guerrero 8000 feet (H. H. Smith). 



Antenna? stout, densely covered with a close white microscopic pile, the third joint 

 not much longer than the fourth. Head broad, sharply retreating behind the eyes ; 

 the face and oral region covered with long pale hair, the occiput and vertex with more 

 scattered and shorter hair ; the face and front closely and rather strongly punctured, 

 the vertex more sparsely, the punctures on the latter being much more widely separated, 

 and almost absent behind the ocelli. Eyes very slightly converging on the top ; ocelli 

 hardly forming a triangle, the anterior ocellus in a pit, the posterior ocelli separated 

 from each other by a greater distance than they are from the eyes. Clypeus rounded 

 in the middle at the apex. Mandibles piceous at the apex. The sides of the pronotum 

 coarsely rugose ; mesonotum very shining; sparsely and finely punctured, the pleura 

 strongly punctured ; scutellum with very few punctures. Median segment striolated, 

 the striolse running into reticulations; the apex with an oblique slope, transversely 

 rugosely punctured; metapleurae obliquely striolated. The sides of the thorax bear 

 long white hairs. Abdomen black at the extreme base, finely aciculate. Legs stout ; 

 the tibise (especially the two hinder pairs) strongly and stoutly spinose ; the tarsi also 

 strongly spinose, rufous towards the apex. Eadial cellule short, the appendicular 

 cellule nearly as long as it, and oblique at the apex ; the second cubital cellule very 

 narrow at the top, not half the length of the space bounded by the recurrent nervures, 

 the latter being almost the length of the third cubital cellule above. 



[Kohl (Verh. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, xxxiv. p. 447) gives A. ccerulea, Cresson, as from 

 Mexico, no other locality being given ; but Cresson himself (Proc. Ent. section Ac. 

 Phil, in Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. ix. p. iv) gives Nevada as the habitat.] 



Pam. ETYSSONmZE. 



I use this term merely for convenience, and not that I consider the group of Nysson 

 and its allies to form a family of equal taxonomic value with,, say, the Pompilidae or 

 Mutillidae. 



As the admirable Monograph of Handlirsch (Sitz. der k. Akad. der Wissensch. 

 Wien, 1887 et seq.) is indispensable to every student of these insects, I have followed 

 his arrangement of the genera. 



