N0.217S. THE GENUS BRACON FABRWIUS—MORRISON. 307 



triangle. The more recent classifications, particularly that of 

 Szephgeti, naake no attempt to group the genera into miits of higher 

 rank. 



It is necessary to discuss a recent change in synonomy, given by 

 Viereck in his paper on the Type Species of the Genera of Ichneumon 

 Flies/ in order to make clear the use of a certain generic name which 

 has long been associated with another group of parasitic Hymenop- 

 tera. This change of name is taken from Viereck's paper referred to 

 above, as I have not had access to Curtis's British Entomology to 

 verify Viereck's conclusions. 



Fabricius described the genus Bracon in his Systema Piezatorum 

 in 1804, page 102, with a number of included species. Curtis in his 

 British Entomology (1825), No. 69, designated the species described 

 as Ichneumon desertor by Linnasus, and included in Bracon by Fabri- 

 cius, as the type of the genus Bracon. Not mitil 1862 did Forster^ 

 designate Bracon minutator Fabricius as the type of Bracon, and so 

 estabUsh the present-day conception of the genus. In the same 

 paper (p. 246) Forster estabhshcd the new genus Cremnofs and 

 included the single species AgatJiis dcflagrator Nees, which is the same 

 species as Iclineumon desertor Linnaeus. From this it is clear that the 

 genus name Bracon wiU have to be applied to those species at present 

 included in the genus Cremnops, and that Cremnops Forster is a 

 synonym of Bracon Fabricius. It is extremely mifortunate that 

 taxonomic work on the parasitic hymenoptera should be still further 

 complicated in this fashion, but there seems to be no other alternative 

 if the International Code of Nomenclature is followed. 



GENUS BRACON FABRICIUS (CREMNOPS FORSTER AND OF AUTHORS). 



The following characters, not all of which, however, are distinctive, 

 will serve to indicate the species belonging to this genus: 



Head elongate, at least nearly as long as wide, strongly produced 

 below the eyes, and much narrowed towards the labrum; malar space 

 varying from a little shorter to a little longer than the height of the 

 eyes; antennae placed in large pits, with two distinct, more or less 

 platelike projections between them, and with a ridge bordering the 

 upper surface of each pit, at least for part of the distance between the 

 compound eyes and the lateral ocellus on each side; ocelli arranged 

 in a nearly equilateral triangle; antennae elongate, black, except in 

 immature specimens, more than 35-segmented; labrum at least 

 nearly as long as wide, its lower edge margined by a more or less dis- 

 tinct ridge; mandibles curved inwards, the tips bidentate, the inner 

 tooth shorter than the outer; maxillae and labium united and elongated 

 to form a distinct beak, the segments of both maxillary and labial 



1 U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 83, 1914. 



aVerh. naturh. ver. preuss. Rheinland, vol. 19, 1S62, p. 235. 



