268 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE FOSSORIAL, PREDACEOUS AND 



PARASITIC WASPS, OR THE SUPERFAMILY 



VESPOIDEA. 



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



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



(Paper No. 9. — Continued from p. 231.) 



Family XXXII. — Bethylida?. 



1830. Proctotrypides, Family (partim), Leach. Edinb. Ency., 

 IX., p. 145. 



1830. Mutiilidre, Family (partim), Leach. Opus cit., p. 147. 



1839. Cenoptera, Tribe 6, Haliday. Hym. Syn., p. iii. 



1839. Bethyllidae, Family 20, Haliday. Opus cit. 



1877. Cenoptera, Tribe 12, Forster. Ueber d. Syst. Werth d. 

 Flugelg., p. 20. 



This family was first defined by that astute British systematist, A. H. 

 Haliday, who, as early as 1839, verv correctly placed the family among 

 the Fossores. 



In 1893 the writer, in his Monograph of the North American 

 Proctotrypidpe, followed the views of Prof. Westwood, and treated these 

 insects as a subfamily in the Proctotrypidas. Since that time, however, 

 the extensive studies I have made into all families of the Hymenoptera 

 have given me a much broader and more thorough knowledge of the 

 families and their affinities, and I am now convinced that Haliday 

 was right, that these insects are allied to the fossorial wasps, and 

 have nothing to do with genuine Proctotrypoids • they are clearly allied 

 to the Chrysididie, through the Cleptinee and Amerigiuee, and to the 

 ScipygidcP^Tiphiidee, Cosi/idee, Thyan'nhe, Myrmosidce and Muti/tidce, — all 

 parasitic families. 



The family Trigoiialidee, too, which is usually classified with the 

 terebrant Hymenoptera, also belongs to the same category, being un- 

 doubtedly allied to the Bet //yi idee and the Sapygiefec, the two-jointed 

 trochanters, the long multiarticulate antennce, and the superficial 

 resemblance to genuine ichneumonids having misled most systematists 

 as to its true position. 



In this connection it may be well to call special attention to the new 

 Bethylid genus, Probethylus, discovered by Mr. E. A. Schwarz, in 

 Arizona, with 23-jointed antenna*, and to the genus Scterogibba, Stefani, 



