422 Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr's Revision of the 



mens, though Say describes them as yellow, the discrepancy is proba- 

 bly due to a difference of age ; the spots on the abdomen as in the 

 % . Wings with a broad dusky irregular band on the outer fourth of 

 the wing. Legs reddish yellow, in some specimens nearly black, tarsi 

 pale. 



Length, .30 inch. 



New Jersey, (Coll. Ent, Soc, Phil.)., The Glen, White Mountains, 

 on Solidago, in August. Northern Maine, Grand Lake, Head waters 

 of the Penobscot, August. 



This species represents A. Mmaculatus Panzer, of Europe. Its 

 black body, black clypeus and two yellow spots on the abdomen, which 

 has the basal ring yellowish red in the 9 , will enable the species to be 

 readily distinguished from the succeeding. 



Alyson melleus, Say. 



A. melleus, Say, Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist., i, p. 380. (1837.) 



Smith, Cat. Hym. Br. Mus., iv, p. 373. (1856). 



9 . Head brown-black, densely not finely punctured, clypeus red- 

 dish yellow, with long sparse hairs; mandibles light honey yellow, 

 scape of antennae yellow beneath, thorax entirely red, rneso-thorax 

 black beneath j wings distinctly banded beyond the pterostigma, the 

 band reaching nearly across the wing ; basal ring and one-half of 2d 

 abdominal ring reddish, the remainder black, with two remote yellow 

 round spots on the anterior half of the 2d ring. Legs red, fore and 

 hind tibiae brown, hind femora pale brown. Propodeum more finely 

 sculptured than in A. oppositus. 



Length, .26 inch. 



New Jersey, (Coll. Ent. Soc. Phil). 



A much slenderer and somewhat smaller species than the pre- 

 ceding. 



DESIDERATUM. 



Alyson aculeatum, Cress., Proc. iv, p. 148. (1865). 

 Cuba, (Guudlach.) 



Subfamily Nyssonin^:, Packard. 



The more essential characters of this group are the narrow front of 

 the head, with the long narrow clypeus. The abdomen becomes in 

 the lower genera sessile, the basal ring of the abdomen being broad 

 and square, while in Gorytes it is more usually subpedunculated in the 

 typical species. 



