TWO NEW 



AXEL LEONARD MELANDER. 



The singular and primitive family Embidae of doubtful affini- 

 ties is represented by not more than a score of living species and 

 a few preserved in amber. Of these nearly one half are known 

 from fewer than five specimens each. Up to 1885, the date of 

 publication of Hagen's Monograph of this family, 2 only fifteen 

 living species had been recorded. Since that time less than a 

 half dozen species have been discovered, so that even now 

 this family remains one of the most poorly represented of the 

 insect world. 



The habits of three or four species have been studied to some 

 extent, but only of Embia solicri Rambur do we know any- 

 thing at all approaching the whole postembryonic life-history. 

 It is to Professor Grassi 3 that we owe this contribution. He 

 worked out the internal anatomy of this species and showed how 

 the nests in which it lives are spun by the insect's forefeet instead 

 of by its mouth-parts as had been previously supposed. The 

 object of the present paper is to call attention to two new forms, 

 one from Texas and one from Mexico, and to the peculiar struc- 

 ture of the spinning organ. 



Up to the present time only two species have been taken on 

 this continent, one, Embia (Oligotoma) hnbbardi Hagen, in 

 Florida and one, Olyntha salvini McLachan in Mexico. The 

 new forms probably belong to these same genera, though one of 

 them is here placed in Embia. This is done, not because it 

 ought not to be included in Oligotoma, where its nearest allies 

 are placed, but because it is believed that the genus Oligotoma 

 is untenable. The two genera are separated only by a peculiar- 

 ity of wing neuration, but Grassi has shown that the adults of 



1 Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory of the University of Texas, No. 16. 



2 Hagen, H., Monograph of the Embidina, Canadian Entomologist, Vol. XVII.,, 

 pp. 141-155, 171-178, 190-199, 206^229. 



3 Costituzione e Svillupo della Societadie Termitidi . . . con un' Appendice . . . 

 sulla Fainiglia delle Embidini. Catania, 1893. 



