THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 153 



Tournier's genus Meracus, established in 1889, Entom. Gene v., I., 

 p. 137, I do not know, nor have I seen the description. 



Saussure, in Grandidier's Histoire de Madagascar, Vol. XX., 1892, 

 following the ideas of Lepeletier, recognized two tribes, Poinpiliens and 

 Fepsie?is, but gives no substantial characters to support this separation, 

 his tribe Pepsiens being composed of the genus Pepsis, and the Pompiliens 

 of all the other genera. 



The last author who has treated of the family is our well-known 

 American hymenopterologist, Wm. J. Fox, of the Philadelphia Academy 

 of Sciences, who, in the Proc. Phila. x\cad. Sci. for 1894, divided the 

 family into three tribes, (i) Ceropalini, (2) Notocyphini, and (3) Pompilini. 



Two of these groups, the Ceropalini and the Notocyphini, are 

 natural groups, the tirst correctly separated by Radoszkowski, but the 

 third, or the Pompilini, is, as interpreted by Fox, a most unnatural group 

 — d. potpourri for the residue of the Pompilid genera. 



The greatest difficulty in a study of the family has been the correla- 

 tion of the very dissimilar sexes of some of the genera and the separation 

 of the family into natural major groups. This difficulty has been the 

 stumbling-block upon which most of the older authors fell, and upon 

 which even to-day some of our most active workers are stumbling. Two 

 or three cases may be cited for example : Fox, in Tr. Am. Ent. Soc, 

 XVIII., described two Pompilids from Jamaica, Salhis opacifrons $ and 

 Agenia compressa S ', both, however, represent a single species, and neither 

 sex belongs to the genus assigned to it by Fox. Another case in point is 

 the Agenia bei/ragei, Cresson, a male insect, which was probably placed 

 here by Cresson and Fox on account of the smooth, non-spinous legs, but 

 which has no relation with a true Agenia. 



Many other cases could be cited, but these, I think, will do to show 

 the difficulty of the study of the Pompilidse, and how deficient our 

 generic definitions must be when our most able hymenopterologists are 

 so easily led astray by superficial resemblances. 



My studies in the family convince me that there are at least six 

 major groups in the family, designated here as subfamilies, distinguished 

 as follows : 



Table of Subfamilies. 

 Labrum large, free, distinct; anterior tarsi in $ always ivithout a comb, 

 the hind tibiae smooth, never spinous, or at most with only a iew feeble, 

 scarcely perceptible spines 5. 



