208 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. ' 



1879, by Dr. F. Miiller, to whom the Museum is greatly indebted for 

 interesting specimens and biological notices. 



The specimen arrived in a letter, and is a little crushed, perhaps flat- 

 tened. It is the only wingless specimen of Olyntha seen by me. I suppose 

 it to be a female, because no male genitals between the appendages are to 

 be seen, and the last ventral segment has a longitudinal furrow (or is per- 

 haps split). There is no female of Olyntha known ; if the females are 

 colored like the males, this specimen belongs to a new species. The 

 apparent indication of wings looks decidedly as when they are abortive 

 and will never be developed. Therefore it can be assumed that the speci- 

 men is a female imago, or if winged females should exist, a wingless form 

 similar to those of the Termitina. 



HISTORY OF THE FAMILY. 



Latreille, Families nat. du regne animal, Paris, 1825, p. 437, at the 

 end of the Termitines, says : " Les genres Termes, Embie (voisin du 

 prece'dent, mais a antennes diffe'rentes)." In the German translation by 

 Dr. Berthold, 1827, p. 435, the French expression Embie is given as Em- 

 bium. Latreille, in Cuvier's Regne Animal, new (2nd) edit, 1829, vol. 

 v., p. 256, states in a foot note : Some insects of the southern parts of 

 Europe and of Africa are related to Termes, but with the head broader 

 than the prothorax, three-jointed tarsi, wings not longer than the abdomen 

 or none, with compressed legs, the two anterior tibias (sic !) much 

 broader, without ocelli, and the thorax elongate form, the genus indi- 

 cated in the Families Nat. with the name Embie (Embia). It has been 

 figured in the large work on Egypt. Indeed the celebrated Savigny, in 

 Descr. de I'Egypte Zool. Neuropt, pi. 2, f 9 and 10, had figured one 

 species with numerous details (E. Savigny i Westw.) The plate was drawn 

 and engraved between 1805 and 1812, but not published before 1825, 

 There are on the plate only the names of the families, even the Termitines 

 wanting among them, but no names of the species. In the meantime the 

 unfortunate Savigny had become blind, and an Explication Sommaire of 

 the plates by V. Audouin was published in the last months of 1825. The 

 note concerning Embia is as follows: "The two insects, figs. 9 and 10, 

 form a new genus, named by Latreille, Famil. Nat. p. 437, Embie, which 

 he places near Termes. M. Savigny has established the same relation by 

 placing Embia on the same plate at the side of Termes." I may remark 



