42 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIOISTAL MUSEUM. vol. 63. 



12. PLATYGASTER PICIPES (Ashmead.) 



Polymecus picipes Ashmead, Bull. 45, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1893, p. 282. — Brues, 

 Bull. 22, Conn. Geol. Nat. Hist. Surv., 1916 (1917), p. 535. 



Female. — Length 1.80 mm. Head transverse, about twice as wide 

 as long; occiput rugo.«;e; vertex shagreened, with a few strong striae 

 medially, rounded ; ocellar space and area round each lateral ocellus 

 rather strongly shagreened; upper half of face on sides with moder- 

 ately fine striae directed downward toward the center of the face; 

 area directly below anterior ocellus unsculptured; center of face 

 covered with fine wavy aciculations; area just above and to the side 

 of the antennal sockets strongly transversely striate, shining, not 

 rugose; antennal projection quadrate, the edges at apex and on sides 

 ridged, with a delicate median carina; pedicel twice as long as wide, 

 third joint inconspicuously shorter than, and as wide as, the fourth, 

 the latter hardly longer than wide; fifth joint triangular, as wide as 

 long, as long as the fourth; seventh joint about as long as wide; 

 eighth and ninth distinctly transverse; tenth a little longer than 

 wide, broadly rounded apically; thorax short and thick, one and one- 

 half times as long as wide; pronotum shagreened above, strongly 

 longitudinally striate on the sides, medially between the two longi- 

 tudinal ridges unsculptured; notauli complete, meeting in an acute 

 point posteriorly which projects over the fovea and touches the scutel- 

 lum; median lobe shagreened, polished posteriorly with a few faint 

 aciculations, anteriorly v/ith the short median ridges obsolescent; 

 lateral lobes shagreened anteriorly and along their inner margins; 

 sGutellum convex, transverse, margined laterally, rather strongly sha- 

 greened; metapleura, propodeum, first tergite, except median area, 

 and proximal half of basal foveae thickly clothed with short silvery 

 hairs; abdomen to the end of the fourth segment as long as the head 

 and thorax combined; first tergite as in canadensis Ashmesid; second 

 twice as long as wide at the base, a little wider apically, as wide as 

 the thorax; third about four times as wide as long, the sides oblique; 

 fourth one and one-half times as long as the third, twice as wide as 

 long, the sides oblique, half as wide apically as the second tergite; 

 fifth one and one-third times as long as the fourth, as long as wide 

 at base, the sides distinctly but only moderately oblique; last seg- 

 ment nearly as long as the third and fourth united, about twice as 

 long as wide at the base, sharply pointed apically and with the sides 

 straight; wings brownish, pubescent, extending to the apex of the 

 fifth segment of the abdomen. Black, legs and antennae dark brown 

 to piceous, the tarsi somewhat lighter colored. 



Type locality. — Washington, District of Columbia. 



Type.— Csit. No. 2272, U.S.N.M. 



