S6 Journal New York Entomological Society. [VoI. xi. 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE POINTED-TAILED 



WASPS, OR THE SUPERFAMILY 



PROCTOTRYPOIDEA.— III. 



By William H. Ashmead, A.M. 



Assistant Curator, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. 



Family LVI. SCELIONID.F:. 



The position of the antennae, which are inserted low down on the 

 face or close to the clypeus, and the shape of the abdomen, which is 

 always acute or margined along the sides, the tergites and sternites 

 where they unite usually forming a fold or carina, will at once dis- 

 tinguish the wasps belonging to this family, from those which follow. 

 The family comes quite close to the family Platygateridce, the two 

 having been classified together as a singe family by Haliday, but it 

 may be easily separated from that family by abdominal peculiarities, 

 by the differences in the antennae, and by the totally different vena- 

 tion of the front wings. 



The family Scelionidee is one of the most extensive, being widely 

 distributed over the entire world, with many genera and species but 

 imperfectly studied. All of the species, without a single exception 

 are egg-parasites of other insects, the Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Or- 

 thoptera and Neuroptera especially being the ones most frequently 

 attacked by them ; other orders, however, are not exempted from 

 their attacks, and one little group, the Baeinae, destroy the eggs of 

 various spiders (Arachnida). 



Table of Subfamilies. 



1. Abdomen always with a distinct lateral carina 2 



Abdomen without a distinct lateral carina, although more or less acute, in shape 



most frequently broadly oval, rarely pointed ovate, but depressed, the second 

 segment always the largest and longest ; front wings with the post-marginal and 

 stigmal veins long; 9 with II -jointed antenna?, rarely l2-jointed, clavate or 

 subclavate ; ^ antennse 12-jointed Subfamily I. TELENOMIN^-E. 



2. Abdomen sessile, most frequently long, fusiform or bnear, extending beyond the tip 



of the wings when folded, rarely broadly oval, the segments more nearly equal, 

 or the third segment is the longest, although rarely much longer than some 

 one of the others ; post-marginal vem usually present, rarely wanting, if wanting 

 the submarginal vein ends in a stigma 3 



