Hyinenoptera. i6i 



" genera," but I soon found out that it was impossible to do 

 so — that in fact the species could not be referred to them ; 

 and that if Foerster's method was to be followed, the erection 

 of a large number of "genera " must be attempted. There 

 are, however, serious objections to that being done, with our 

 present limited knowledge of exotic forms ; not only so, but 

 many of the characters employed by Foerster and his 

 followers merge so much into one another that they are 

 perfectly useless for purposes of generic diagnosis, e.g. the 

 abdominal segments in Piniplides. Even as regards Euro- 

 pean species the method in many cases fails. Take, for 

 example, Foerster's divisions of Kleditoma. Of these he 

 has five, arranged according to the number of joints in the 

 antennal club. If species were to be discovered with two- and 

 one-jointed clubs,"genera" would logically have to be erected 

 for them ; more than that the species I have described in 

 this paper under the name of Kleditoma melanopoda should 

 form the type of a " genus," because it has no antennal club 

 at all. Then again, the males of all these divisions have no 

 distinctive characters ; so that the " genera " are founded 

 exclusively on the females. 



As another example of the multiplication of genera, I 

 may allude to the recent elevation by Herr Konow of some of 

 the divisions of Stronglogaster and Blemiocauipa to generic 

 rank. If these are to be accepted, a large number of genera 

 must be formed for the American species ; and I question very 

 much if the characters employed by Herr Konow will not 

 be found on examination to merge so much into one 

 another as to be incapable of rigid definition. That all 

 large genera fall into well marked groups is, of course, true; 

 and in monographic works such groups should be defined; 

 but it is questionable if anything is to be gained by giving 

 them names. The naming of the species oi Blennocampa 

 (using the word in the Thomsonian sense), for example, is 

 not greatly facilitated by certain of the groups being 

 separated from it and given names. 



