THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOOIST. 145 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE ENTOMOPHILOUS WASPS, OR 

 THE SUPERFAMILY SPHEGOIDEA. 



BY WILLIAM H. ASHMEAD, ASSISTANT CURATOR, DIVISION OF INSECTS, 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



(Paper No. i.) 



In the Journal of the New York Entomological Society for March, 

 1899, I separated the Hymenoptera into ten superfaniilies, viz.: I. 

 Apoidea, II. Sphegoidea, III. Vespoidea, IV. Formicoidea, V. Procto- 

 trypoidea, VI. Cynipoidea, VII. Chalcidoidea, VIII. Ichneumonoidea, 

 IX. Siricoidea, and X. Tenthredinoidea. 



In the following pages I now propose to give a classification of the 

 second of these superfamilies, or the Sphegoidea, a large group of wasps 

 at one time confused with the genuine fossorial wasps, but which may be 

 readily separated from them by having the hind angles of the pronotum 

 not extending back to the tegulse. Of all wasps these are the ones most 

 closely allied to the bees. 



Some of the best entomologists of the past — Leach, Dahlbom, 

 Haliday, Westwood, and others — held that the group represented many 

 distinct families ; but quite recently some of our modern systematic 

 workers — men of the highest attainments and ability — hold quite 

 different views, treat this vast group as a single family, and would 

 suppress or merge into a single genus many genera that were formerly 

 considered good and distinct. 



To use a slang expression, it is the old battle between the " lumpers " 

 and the "splitters" revived, and the evolutionary problems taking place 

 around us are ignored or misunderstood. 



I believe firmly both schools, if we may call them such^ are honest 

 in their beliefs ; but since I belong to the latter, it seems to me as if the 

 students in the former were restrained or misled by affinities, or relation- 

 ships, often obscure and indefinable, and overlook the fact that evo- 

 lutionary changes have already been accomplished ; and, because they 



