JAMES CHESTER BRADLEY 
247 
CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARD A MONOGRAPH OF THE'-^so 
MUTILLIDAE AND THEIR ALLIES OF AMERICA 
NORTH OF MEXICO f1- 
BY JAMES CHESTER BRADLEY V 
IV. A REVIEW OF THE MYRMOSIDAE 
The terni IVIyrmosidae is here used in the exact sense in which 
It was applied by Dr. Ashmead, that is to include those Scolioid 
wasps winch in the female sex are always wingless and have the 
thorax divided into two distinct parts (as contrasted with three 
in Thynmdae or the entirely undivided condition of the Mutilli- 
dae), and which in the male sex are distinguished from Mutillidae 
by the possession of an anal lobe on their hind wings, but possess 
no very definite characters distinct from the Thynnidae. It is 
very doubtful whether the females provisionally associated with 
BrachTjcistis really belong there, and until the female sex of that 
genus is known, its status in the Myrmosidae must remain an 
open question. 
I make use of the family group Myrmosidae tentatively and 
merely as a matter of convenience, without wishing to express 
any convictions concerning its limits, or the advisability of rec- 
ognizing it as a distinct family. 
It may not be out of place to note, however, that the middle 
coxa« of Chtjpholes are widely separated, which would throw them 
into the Thynnidae by Dr. Aslnnead’s tables, that the wing 
venation of Brachycistis (figure 5). Typhoctes (figure 3), and 
thyphotes (figure 4), are of a type very different from that of 
Myrmom (figure 2), which is on the contrary more analogous to 
Uiat of Methoca m the Thynnidae, or of Tekphoromyia and other 
Thynnidae. While the hypopygiuni of ilyrnwsa is unarmed 
Brachycistis, Typhoctes, and Chyphotes, as well as Methoca in 
the Thynnidae, have their hypopygia armed with a recurved 
aculeus similar to that of Elis [ = Plesia and Myzim], 
In this i>aper, as in the others of the scries, I have entered the 
synonymy of each species only in so far as it differs from, or is 
TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC., XLIII. 
