238 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



table, slightly altered, was reproduced by me in Entomologica 

 Americana, vol. iii, 1887, p. 186. 



In 1894, Mr. John W. Shipp,* gave a short revision of the 

 genus '1 horacantha Latreille, based upon material in the Hope 

 Museum, Oxford, in which five supposed new genera are char 

 acterized, viz. : Lasionychus, Dilocantha, Lcetotantha, Acros- 

 tela, and Isomeralia. 



Lasionycha Shipp equals Uromelia Kirby, while Acrostola 

 Shipp is apparently based upon the male of Thoracantha Latr. 

 At least, that is my opinion, since all the Acrostolce I possess are 

 males, and I had them placed as the opposite sex of T. latreillei 

 before Mr. Shipp's paper appeared, and I see no reason for be 

 lieving them other than the opposite sex of this common Brazil 

 ian species. 



Of the habits of this group, comparatively little is known. 

 Mons. L. Bedel, Bull. Soc. Ent. de France, 1895, p. xxxv, re 

 cords the rearing of Chalcura bedeli Cameron from the cocoons 

 of Formica rufa Linn. ; while Mr. Cameron, in Mem. and Proc. 

 Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., 1891, p. 5, records the interest 

 ing fact that Prof. Forel, of Zurich, obtained two specimens of 

 Eucharis myrmicice Cam. from the cocoons of the Bull-dog 

 Ant, Myrmicia forficata Fabr., sent him from South Australia. 



Before giving a table of the genera now recognized, it may be 

 well to give some of the structural peculiarities of the group which 

 I believe entitle it to family rank. 



The head is comparatively smaller than other Chalcidids, tri 

 angular, and much thinner antero-posteriorly ; the mandibles are 

 rather long, falcate, without or with one or two teeth within in 

 one or the other mandible, both mandibles rarely being exactly 

 alike. 



The shape and characteristics of the mandibles alone will en 

 able the careful student to separate at once a Eucharid from all 

 others in the Chalcidoidea. But there are several other dis 

 tinguishing characters : The thorax is most frequently very gib 

 bous, the scutellum very large, abnormally developed, elevated, 

 and usually produced posteriorly, the axillae being connate, not 

 distinctly separated from the surrounding surface, and broadly 

 united along their inner margin, so as to separate widely the scu 

 tellum proper (middle lobe) from the base of the mesonotum. 



The legs also are quite characteristic of the group, being un 

 usually slender, with all the coxae of very nearly an equal size. 



The wings, too, offer some slight differences from other Chal 

 cidids ; they are almost entirely bare or devoid of pubescence, the 

 front pair being somewhat broadly rounded at apex, with a mod 

 erately long marginal vein and a very short sessile or at most 

 subsessile stigmal vein, the postmarginal vein being absent, very 



*The Entomologist, 1894, June No., p.. 184. 



