146 TilK CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



find certain affinities, would treat all of these important changes that 

 have occurred through ages of evolutionary forces as of no value or 

 significance. 



This tendency to lumping I consider a retrogression in our systematic 

 workers, tending to confusion and to unwarrantable changes in our 

 nomenclature ; and it is to combat this tendency and make an effort to 

 restore to their proper standing these suppressed families and genera, in 

 accordance with the views held by the older entomologists, that I present 

 herewith, in tabular form, the only possible way of demonstrating 

 thoroughly the value and utility of divisibns and genera, my ideas on the 

 classification of this great group of wasps. 



Before proceeding with my tables, however, and in order to afford a 

 basis of comparison with my own views, it may be well to call attention 

 to the views of two leading hymenopterists who have given much time 

 and study to this group of wasps, namely, Mr. Wm. J. Fox, of the 

 Pliiladelphia Academy of Sciences, and Dr. Franz Kohl, of the Royal 

 Hofmuseums of Vienna, Austria. 



In 1894, Mr. Fox, following the opinion of some of the recent 

 European authorities, in his paper entitled " A Proposed Classification of 

 the Fossorial Hymenoptera of North America," treats these wasps as 

 representing a single family. He says : " It has been evident for some 

 time that the existing arrangement, that contained 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 Sphegid^e, for 

 instance, were divided into no less than nine families. Accepting these 

 nine families would, it seems to me, necessitate the erection of families 

 for such genera as Neolarra, liothynostethus, Trypoxylon, and others, 

 which stand more or less isolated and yet possess characters which 

 connect them in one way or another with the formerly existing families, 

 and would form more distinct families were they recognized than, say, 

 the Mellinidae, Ampulicid;«, Nyssonidce or Bembicidae. How these nine 



