292 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1894. 



A PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF THE FOSSORIAL HYMENOPTERA OF 



NORTH AMERICA. 



BY ^VILLIAM J. FOX. 



The arrangement of our Fossores contained in the following pages, 

 I trust will be of some service to students of these insects. It has 

 been evident for some time that the existing arrangement, that con- 

 tained in Cresson's Synopsis,^ is of little value, as it is too superficial. 

 Entirely too many families, without characters to substantiate them, 

 were recognized : the Sphegidie, for instance, which were divided into 

 no less than nine families. Accepting these nine families would, it 

 seems to me, necessitate tlie erection of families for such genera as 

 Neolarra, BotJujnostdltus, Trypoxylon and others, which stand more 

 or less isolated and yet possess characters which connect them in one 

 wa}'^ or another with the formerly existing families and would form 

 more distinct families, were they so recognized, than, say, the Mel- 

 linidas Ampulicid:e, Nyssonid;e or Bembicidie. How these nine 

 supposed families have been disposed of, the following pages will 

 show. 



Saussure's recent classification'- is not satisfactory, inasmuch as it 

 is incomplete, and, moreover, his conclusions, particularly regarding 

 the Pompilidte, are not well founded. He makes two tribes of this 

 family, the Pompiliens and Pepsiens, separating them on a very 

 trivial character — the position of insertion of the first recurrent 

 nervure in the second submarginal cell, a character which, in my ex- 

 perience, has always proved variable. Under the first mentioned 

 tribe he includes Cerojiales, which he seems to consider as not worthy 

 of more than generic rank, while he forms a tribe for the reception 

 of Pepsis, which should be placed with the Pompiliens, if anywhere. 

 The Mutillidre and Sapygidoc are considered as subfamilies of the 

 Scoliidse; these are ranked as families in this paper. The old 

 families Pemphredonida and Crabronidtc and Oxijhelus, he considers 

 as tribes of equal value to the Nyssonidse, Bembicidie and Larridte, 



1 Mr. Cresson states that this was simply compiled from the works of other 

 authors. 



^ Grandidier's Hist. Madagascar, XX. 



