2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, vol.63. 



collection; and that of the European species, versicolor Wesmael, a 

 parasite of the brown-tail moth, now well established in the New 

 England States, In placing the Provancher and Viereck species 

 just alluded to, I received valuable aid from notes made by Mr. A. 

 B. Gahan upon a study of the tj^pes a few years ago and kindly loaned 

 me for use in the preparation of this paper. The original description 

 of hakeri is good, and this together with the authors' figure and the 

 host record makes identification of this species comparatively easy; 

 vitticoUis Holmgren was poorly characterized, and I have been unable 

 to place it; accordingly it has been omitted from the table of species. 

 A large amount of authentic material of M. versicolor, in the collec- 

 tion of the gypsy-moth laboratory in Melrose Highlands, Massachu- 

 setts, has been studied, and used in assigning this species to its proper 

 place in the key. Thirty-one valid species, besides vitticoUis, are 

 recognized as occurring in our fauna; of these 13 are new to science 

 and are described in the following pages. It has been necessary to 

 suppress 17 names as synonyms of previously described species; 

 this is not surprising in view of the enormous extent of the variation 

 found in nearly all forms. 



I am indebted to Mr. A. F. Burgess, in charge of the gypsy-moth 

 and brown-tail moth investigations, for permission to make the trips 

 necessary for an examination of the type material; and to Messrs. 

 A. B. Gahan and S. A. Rohwer, of the Biu^eau of Entomology, for 

 many helpful suggestions and for criticism of the manuscript. 

 Thanks are due Dr. J. C. Bradley, of Cornell University, for the loan 

 of all the Meieorus material in that institution; also Mr. C. W. 

 Johnson, of the Boston Society of Natural History; Mr. Nathan 

 Banks, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massa- 

 chusetts, and Dr. C. T. Brues, of Harvard University, for the loan of 

 specimens. Prof. R. H. Pettit, of the Michigan Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, very kindly sent me a specimen which was supposedly 

 the type of hakeri Cook and Davis, but which, it was found later, 

 had not been included in the type series, the original series of three 

 specimens having apparently disappeared. 



