124 [May, 1899. 



PASTOR KONOW'S PROPOSALS AS TO THE CLASSIFICATION OF 

 ETMENOPTERA. 



BY THE REV. F. D. MOEICE, M.A., F.E.S. 



Pastor F. "W. Konow, the well kuown Hymenopterist and 

 authority ou the Tenthredinidcd, &c., has recently published suggestions 

 for an improved division of the Hymenoptera into Sub-Orders. A 

 brief summary of his views may be of interest to English Hymeno- 

 pterists. They may be found stated at length, with remarks as to 

 divisions employed in other Orders and the desirability of a more 

 uniform system of nomenclature in these matters, in the " Entomolo- 

 gische Nachrichten," Berlin, 1S97, p. 148. 



The present paper has been read by Herr Konow, and he has 

 sanctioned its publication as a compendious statement of his views. 



Linne's twofold division of the Hymenoptera into " Genera Tere- 

 hrantia " and " Genera Aculeata " is open to the objection that it rests 

 solely upon $ characters. Nor have the TenthredinidcB, &c., strictly 

 speaking a " terebi'a " (Sorer), but a"serra" (saw), while again the 

 exsertile ovipositor of the Chrysidce {TuhuUfera) is not properly an 

 " aculeus " (sting), nor is it known to be ever used either as a saw or 

 as a borer. 



The division into " Ditroclia''^ and " 3Ionotrocha " is so far better 

 that it rests on a character — the double- or single-jointed trochanter 

 — which appears in both sexes. Taschenberg has, indeed, asserted 

 that the sub -Order Ditrocha includes insects with single- jointed tro- 

 chanters ; but he gives no instances, and though HeJorus has been 

 considered a case in point, Konow finds that it has in fact a double 

 trochanter. Again, some Monotroclia (Oxyhelus, Gorytes, &c.) show 

 an apparent division of the trochanter, but this (teste Konow) is an 

 illusion, the supposed extra joint being really a part of the femur, and 

 in no case moveable. Still, a division cannot be thought satisfactory 

 which, on the strength of one common character, unites genera like 

 the TentJiredinidce and the Ichneumonidce, differing as they do in all 

 other respects quite as much from each other as front the Monotroclia. 



In short, this twofold grouping, whether ovipositor or trochanter 

 be taken as its ground, quite fails to separate the insects as Nature 

 has separated them, and gives to the so-called sub-Order of Tere- 

 hrantia or Ditrocha a seeming unity which it does not in fact possess. 



Equally unsatisfactoi'y for the same reason is the division, based 

 on the connection of abdomen and thorax, between the Sessiliventres 



