442 The Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. IX, No. 4, 



first described as a species by Lloyd and Underwood, and ranging 

 from Newfd. and Quebec to Wisconsin and southward to Ala- 

 bama and the Carolinas. The specimens we have examined 

 clearly point to a subordinate relationship to Lycopodium 

 lucidulum Michx. rather than to a distinct specific identity. The 

 leaves are very minutely denticulate to entire instead of toothed 

 as in the species and are generally lance-linear and narrowed from 

 the base upwards instead of being broader above the middle as in 

 true L. lucidulum. The plant is being critically studied by 

 Prof. L. S. Hopkins from whom we may expect a more detailed 

 report. 



Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg. 



A SYNONYMICAL DEFINITION OF NYSSON AND 

 OF N. AURINOTUS. 



W. H. Pattox. 



Acanthostethus, described by Frederick Smith in the 

 Transactions of the Entomological Scoiety of London for 1869, 

 p. 306, was founded on a female specimen of an Australian 

 species, A. basalis Sm. (1 c. and pi. vi, f. 3), and is probably iden- 

 tical with the "Spalagia" w"hich is mentioned by Shuckard in 

 Lardner's Encyclopedia, but without a word of description, as an 

 ally of Nysson. Although Mr. Smith does not appear to have 

 appreciated the fact, this insect differs from true Nysson in 

 nothing but the union of the first and second submarginal cells 

 of the forewing, by the obsolescence of the dividing vein ; and in 

 this it agrees with the other Australian species, N. mysticus 

 Gerst., and with the New Mexican Nysson solani Ckll. (Mis- 

 cothyris Sm., 1860, is a related Australian genus) . The Hypon3^s- 

 son of Mr. Cresson presents a precisely similar peculiarity in that, 

 as he has pointed out, it differs from Nysson in nothing but the 

 union of the third and fourth subinarginal cells. 



In his monograph* Gerstaecker has shown that Synneurus 

 Costa and Brachystegus Costa, are but synonyms of Nysson, the 

 characters of the presence or absence of a petiole to the third 

 submarginal cell of the forewings and the length of the subme- 

 dial cell of the hind wings being variable in different individuals 

 of the same species and not being in correlation with any other 

 characters. 



Turning now to another group of wasps we find that Miscus 

 and Ammophila are known to be one genus just as Synneurus 

 and Nysson are, and that Coloptera and Ammophila, which I 

 have material for proving to be genericall}- inseparable, have 



* Die Arten der Gattung Nysson, lluUe, 1867. 



