r<*2 



%\\t Cmmiliatj mittamoltJjjbt. 



VOL. XXV. 



LONDON, MARCH, 1893. 



No. 



CANADIAN HYMENOPTERA.— No. 3. 



BY W. HAGUE HARRINGTON, OTTAWA. 



In my last paper (see page 32) I unfortunately repeated the error 

 made by Provancher in giving Vancouver as the habitat of Ecihrus Pro- 

 vancheri. I overlooked its correction (Can. Ent., Vol. XVII, page 160) 

 by Mr. Brodie, who obtained the insect from Muskoka. 



Having recently restudied and rearranged my Ottawa collections of 

 Phyllophaga and Xylophaga, so as to prepare for publication in the 

 Ottaiva Naturalist a complete list of the local species, I have made 

 some notes which may be of more general interest. There are also 

 several species, apparently new, which I prefer to describe here, as I 

 think that all new species should be described (or at least redescribed) in 

 some publication devoted entirely to Entomology, and accessible to all 

 students. The publication of species in miscellaneous proceedings and 

 transactions prevents many entomologists from having access to them, 

 necessitates an outlay of money and time which in many cases cannot be 

 spared by students, and gives rise to much unnecessary synonymy, etc. 



One point of interest in the Tenthredinidae is the excess of the 

 females, both as regards species and individuals. Of the 152 species 

 which have been taken in this neighborhood the females of 139 species 

 are represented, and the males of 82 only. Both sexes are recognized in 

 69 species, leaving 70 represented by the female only, and 13 by the male 

 only. This disparity of the sexes is more marked in some sections of 

 the subfamily, notably in the unwieldy and difficult genus Nematus, 

 where of 34 species there occur females of 32, and males of only 10., /. e., 

 only the male of every third species has been found. 



The scarcity of males among sawflies is even more marked, when the 

 occurrence of individuals is considered ; for in 1,262 specimens there are 

 885 females and 377 males. Of many species the females and males 

 differ so much in coloration that they have been described as distinct 

 insects, and the relationship of some have undoubtedly not yet been 

 recognized, but there are other species of which, while the sexes are 



