NOTES ON CERTAIN GENERA OF PARASITIC CYNIPIDAE 

 PROPOSED BY ASHMEAD WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF 

 GENOTYPES. 



By Lewis II. Weld, 



Of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. 



In his classification of the superfamily Cynipoidea ' Dr. W. H. Ash- 

 mead proposed several new generic names in his key, designating as 

 the type in each case a new species which neither at that time nor 

 since has received fuller description. Eight of these new genera were 

 recognized by Ashmead in a collection of South American Hymen- 

 op tera made by H. H. Smith and since acquired by the Carnegie 

 Museum of Pittsburgh. He had planned a paper on the South 

 American Cynipoidea and drawn up a rough outline, but descrip- 

 tions of species were never written out and the paper was never 

 finished. Although his report on the Chalcidoidea of South America 

 published by the Carnegie Museum states that the Cynipoidea have 

 been returned except for a set of duplicates in his possession, the 

 actual return seems not to have been carried out and the small 

 collection of about 40 specimens has remained in the United States 

 National Museum until the present time substantially as he left it. 

 If these are the "duplicates," the bulk of the collection is not yet 

 located. Without making a full report either on this collection or 

 on the Cynipoidea of South America known to date it seems advisable 

 to write out descriptions of these genotype species whose names are 

 in the literature so that the collection may now be returned to the 

 Carnegie Museum and publish figures of them so that they maj* be 

 be available to students of the South American fauna. Through the 

 courtes} T of Dr. W. J. Holland, director of the Carnegie Museum, an 

 exchange has been arranged so that these genotypes, together with 

 seven species of Liopteron, three of which were described by Ashmead, 

 may remain in the United States National Museum, where is located 

 probably the largest collection of American parasitic Cynipidae. The 

 balance of the H. H. Smith Cynipid collection has now been returned 

 to the Carnegie Museum. To this attempt to make the relationships 

 of these South American genera better understood are appended a 

 few notes on other genera correcting some errors in the Dalla Torre 

 and Kieffer Monograph of 1910. 2 



i Psyche, 1903, vol. 10. 'Das Tierreich. Lief. 24. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 59-No. 2378. 

 27177— 21— Proc.N.M.vol.59 28 433 



