OF WASHINGTON*, VOLUME XV, 1913 185 



a spot before and beneath and a spot in front of intermediate coxir, white; 

 legs rufo-ferruginous; the anterior coxae and trochanters beneath, the bases 

 of all the tibiae white; the posterior tibiae and tarsi to the extreme apices of 

 the posterior femora black; membrane of the sternites white with black 

 maculations laterally; wings hyaline, faintly dusky; venation black. 



Male. Length, 10 mm. Agrees well with the above description of the 

 female but for the usual sexual characters, and in having the clypeus en- 

 tirely, the inner orbits to vertex, and two spots extending from the clypeus 

 to the bases of the antennae and an elongate spot on the mesepisternum 

 below, white. 



Winchester, Virginia, described from three females (one type) 

 and one male recorded under Bureau of Entomology Number 

 Quaintance 10401. Specimens reared by E. B. Blakesley, April 20, 

 1913, from Sesia pyri. 



Type Cat. No. 16854, U.S.N.M. 



Genus HELCOSTIZUS Foerster. 

 Syn. Aslermiulax Viereck, Proc. T. S. Xat. Mus. vol. 42, 1912. p. 632. 



A comparison between Aster naulax fiskei Viereck and Helcostizus 

 hrachycentrus (Gravenhorst) revealed no generic differences. The 

 writer is of the opinion that Ashmead was correct in placing Helco- 

 stizus in the Xoridini. To him the habitus is Xoridini not Phyga- 

 donini, where Schmiedeknecht places it, and the complete absence 

 of sternauli would also remove it from Cryptince. As far as the 

 American species of Echthurus Gravenhorst are concerned he is of 

 the opinion that they should be placed in the subfamily Cryptince 

 as they all have sternauli. In other words the Pimplinse includes 

 genera in which the sternauli are wanting. 



HELCOSTIZIDEA, n. genus. 



Cubocephalus Ashmead (nee Ratzeburg) Proc. U. f S. Nat. Mus. vol.23, 

 1910, p. 61. 



This genus has somewhat the habitus of some of the Cryptini, 

 but differs from all Cryptini in the absence of the sternauli. It 

 resembles them however, in that the spiracles on the first tergite 

 are placed slightly beyond the middle. 



Head, seen from above, quadrate or nearly so; temples broad; malar 

 space as long or nearly as long as diameter of the eye, mandibles short, bi- 

 dentate apically; apical margin of the clypeus depressed; scape strongly 

 convex dorsally, straight ventrally, longer on the dorsal line than on the 

 ventral line; prepectus represented by faint carinac; sternauli obsolete; 

 scutum without furrows; propodoum areolato, the areola sometimes con- 



