1865.] 85 



Monograph of the PHILANTHIDiE of North America. 

 BY E. T. CRESSON. 



{Communicated July lOiA, 1865.) 



This extensive family is represented by some of the most beautiful 

 species in the tribe of fossorial Hymenoptera. The genera are but 

 three in number — Phihtnthus, Cerceris and Eucerceris, nov. gen.; the 

 two former are numerous in species, and have a wide distribution, being 

 found in Europe, Asia. Africa, Australia, and North and South Ame- 

 rica. The last named genus seems to be confined to North America, 

 and is closely allied to Cerceris, though quite distinct by the different 

 neuration of the anterior wings. The only two species heretofore de- 

 scribed, and belonging to this genus, were referred by Say to Fhilan- 

 fhus; his specimens being males, he doubtless placed them in that genus 

 because of the neuration being more similar than to that of Cerceris, 

 while at the same time he was convinced that they should form "a dis- 

 tinct subgenus." 



Little or nothing is as yet known of the economy of our species of 

 this family, but they have doubtless much the same habits as those of 

 Europe, where the species of Philanthns seem to prey almost exclu- 

 sively upon Andrcna, Halictus and Apis mellijica, while those of Cer- 

 ceris select difierent species of Curculionidae, and other coleopterous 

 insects, as well as Ealicti ; these are stored up in their cells for the 

 nourishment of their young. 



Genus PHILANTHUS, Fabr. 

 Head large, wider than the thorax, suborbicular, sometimes subquad- 

 rate ; eyes lateral, ovate, slightly emarginate within ; ocelli in a trian- 

 gle on the vertex ; antennae subclavate, inserted above the clypeus in 

 the middle of the foce, not approximated; clypeus trilobate, the lateral 

 lobes of % with an ap^ressed tuft of long silky pubescence ; mandibles 

 acute at their apex. Thorax ovate, the collar transverse, the metatho- 

 rax obtusely rounded, sometimes truncated behind. Wings : the ante- 

 rior wing (Fig. 1) with one marginal and three submarginal cells; the 

 Fig. 1. marginal cell narrow, elongate, more or less pointed 



at tip ; the first submarginal cell about as long as the 

 two following, the second about half as long as the 

 first and narrowed towards the marginal, receiving the first recurrent 

 nervure about the middle or a little beyond ; third submarginal larger 

 than the second, narrowed nearl}' half its width towards the marginal, 



