JAMES CHESTER BRADLEY 201 



each represented by a considerable number of specimens, and 

 probably three others from the extreme south represented by a 

 small number. The former seem to correspond sufficiently both 

 in distribution and abundance to the four commoner eastern 

 males, briazus, hexagona, rufa, and proriiethea, to make their asso- 

 ciation justifiable, at least tentativel}-, and certainly preferable 

 to the creation of new names. 



There can be little query concerning the identity of the females 

 that I here call briaxus with that species, and by reason of their 

 truncate thorax and square humeral angles the individuals of 

 this species are more readily recognized than some of the others. 

 Like the males of briaxus these are the only females occurring in 

 Canada. They occur in Colorado and are common in the North- 

 east south to Virginia. I am led to identify promethea as such, 

 by the fact that, like the male, it occurs only in South Georgia 

 and Florida, and is common at Spring Creek, where I took many 

 males of promethea. Of another species I have two females 

 caught at Yaphank, Long Island, on the same day that males of 

 hexagona were caught, and this taken with similar distribution 

 leads me to assign this group of females to hexagona. There 

 remains the fourth group, which agreeing in distribution, must 

 be assumed to be rufa.^ I am well aware that this method of 

 associating sexes is not conclusive, but under the circumstances it 

 seems to me better in the present case than to establish the 

 females under new specific names. 



The only character by which I have been able to separate the 

 females is the shape of the thorax, and this can not be expressed 

 in a key with sufficient exactness to make it probable that it can 

 be used for the identification of specimens without a series for 

 comparison. The structure of the pygidium varies from entirely 



1 Since drawing this conclusion it has been substantiated by the receipt from 

 IVIr. Banks of a male riifa pinned with one of these females, and taken together 

 but not in coitu. Still later I have seen in the collection of the United States 

 National Museum a male briaxus pinned with the female as above defined, 

 from Centreville, Florida, and bearing the label "Taken in copulation, Hub- 

 bard," and also a male promdhea stated by R. A. Cushman to have been 

 positively taken in copulation with the female specimen with which it is 

 pinned, at Tallulah, Louisiana. This female is a typical specimen of the 

 form which I have above assigned to promethea. The females of briaxus, 

 promethea, rufa, and ornatipennis may therefore be considered as positively 

 established. 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC, XLII. 



