132 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Mar., 'll 



NOTE ON THE MELOID-GENUS HORNIA, RILEY, AND ITS ALLIES. 

 [Apropos of Dr. Wellman's recent article in the NEWS for January 

 1911, on a new species of Hornia, the following from Ent. Monthly 

 Mag., XLVII, pp. 16, 17, London (Jan. 1911) is of interest.] My 

 friend, Manuel Martinez de la Escalera, during a visit to Horsell last 

 week, showed me two living examples of a remarkable Sitarid he had 

 just bred from pupae found in the cells of an Anthophora in walls at 

 Mogador, Morocco. This insect has recently been described by him as 

 a new genus and species under the name Allendesalasaria nymphoides 

 (Boletin Soc. Espan. Hist. Nat., 1910, pp. 379-382), but he was ap- 

 parently unaware of the fact that there were two extremely closely 

 allied known American forms. One of these latter, Hornia minutipen- 

 nis, Riley, from Missouri, has simple tarsal claws, the other, Leonia 

 rileyi, Duges, from Mexico, has the tarsal claws armed with a very 

 long tooth, and both insects also attack Anthophora. Allendesalazaria 

 has the tarsal claws formed as in Hornia, and there can be little doubt 

 that these two genera must be very closely related.* 

 The American insects have been very fully described and figured, and 

 their habits noted in detail by Rileyt and DugesJ respectively. Duges 

 placed them under a separate section (Horniidcs) of the Meloidae, 

 mainly on account of their minute elytra, and this arrangement was 

 adopted by me when dealing with the Mexican forms (Biol. Centr.- 

 Am., Coleopt, iv, 2, p. 370). The two genera, however, are very nearly 

 related to Sitaris, which also attacks Anthophora. The American and 

 Moroccan insects are recorded as having been found upon walls in the 

 vicinity of the nests of these mason-bees, after the manner of our own 

 Sitaris muralis. According to M. Escalera, the female of A. nymphoides 

 does not leave the gallery of the bee. It would be interesting to com- 

 pare Hornia minutipennis with the Moroccan A. nymphoides, but un- 

 fortunately this is not possible. I saw a co-type of Leonia in Paris 

 many years ago, in the collection of A. Salle. Hornia is known to me 

 from description alone. G. C. CHAMPION, Horsell, Woking: December, 

 1910. 



*Since this note has been in type M. Escalera writes me as follows : 

 Allendesalazaria is valid, and may be separated from Hornia by the fol- 

 lowing characters : 



Scutellum cordiform; wings one-fifth shorter than the elytra; anten 

 nse short (in the 9- a little longer than the head, in the $ as long as 

 the head and thorax together), the third joint longer than the others 



Hornia, Riley. 



Scutellum transverse; wings wanting; antennas longer (in the 9 

 reaching the posterior border of the prothorax, in the $ extending 

 considerably beyond it), the third joint not longer than the others 



Allcndcsalazaria, Esc. 



t Trans. Acad. St. Louis, iii, p. 564, t. 5, figs. 13, a d (1877). 



$ Insect Life, i, no. 7, pp. 211-213, figs. 47, b / (1889). 



