OF WASHINGTON. 221 
AUTHORSHIP OF THE FAMILY MYMARID^E. 
BY L. O. HOWARD . 
Without expressing further my views of the rank and position of the 
group of parasitic Hymenoptera of which Curtis's genus My mar is the 
type, I wish to call attention to tohe fact that Haliday (Hym. Brit., London, 
1839) i s tnc original proposer of the group name Mymaridae (see Agassiz, 
Nomen. Zool., Hym., 22), and that therefore the symbol " ;." placed 
after this work in Mr. Ashmead's " Proposed Natural Arrangement of the 
Hymenopterous Families" (Proc. Entom. Soc. Wash., vol. i, p. 98), is 
probably due to an oversight, and should be replaced by the word " Hali- 
day." From the context it will be seen that Mr. Ashmead was familiar 
with Haliday's views as to the position of this group, but he overlooks the 
important " idae" ending used by the older author. 
The Agassiz reference would fix the authority for the use of " Mymari- 
dae" as a word, and although I do not possess a copy of the Haliday paper 
I had concluded that he considered the group as of family rank, for the 
reason that in a review of No. i of the Monograph, in Isis, 1840, page 407, I 
notice that the Diapridae, the Ceraphronidae, the Dryinidae, and the Bethyl- 
idaj are considered as families, of equal rank with the Pelecinidae and the 
Proctotrupidaj, all coming under the Tribe Oxyura, while from Haliday's 
other writings it was easily seen that he retained " idse" ending for groups 
of family rank. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Cresson, however, I have received a copy 
of a portion of this monograph, in which I see that Haliday calls Mymari- 
dae ''Fam. 17" of his tribe 4 Halticoptera, the families Chalcididse and 
Leucospidie forming families 16 and 15 respectively. The family Myma- 
ridae should therefore be considered as belonging to Haliday. 
Mr. Ashmead said that he now agreed with Mr. Howard, but 
at the time of writing his paper on the Hymenoptera (see ante, 
p. 98) he considered that Haliday had used the name more as a 
group than a family. 
Mr. Schwarz read the following : 
STRAY NOTES ON INJURIOUS INSECTS IN SEMITROPICAL FLORIDA. 
BY E. A. SCHWARZ. 
For any one desirous of making observations on insects injurious to cul- 
tivated plants, semitropical Florida is not the right place to go to, for the 
reason that there is very little agriculture or horticulture carried on on the 
Keys and the narrow coast strip of more than 500 miles in length, com- 
prising the semitropical region of Florida. The settlement of Lake Worth 
is the southernmost point where fruit trees and garden vegetables are raised 
on a somewhat extended scale. Here some very interesting observations 
on injurious insects can, no doubt, be made; but on my trip I merely 
