of New Exotic Aculeate Hymenoptera. 73 
Genus. Pison. Jurine, Spinola, Latr. <^c. 
[ Tachybulus, Lat., Nephridia, Brulle.] 
As some doubt and confusion still exists respecting this genus, 
it will perhaps be as well to state its history. The type was first 
discovered in 1805, by Spinola, near Genoa; he took three speci- 
mens, one of which he sent to Latreille, the second to Jurine, and 
the third he retained, and which he described, in the fourth fasci- 
culus of his Insecta Ligurice, as Alyson ater. Latreille wrote him 
word in 1807, that he had found the same insect, and thought it to 
be the Myrmosa atra, hut if not, it was a new genus in the vicinity 
of Trypoxylon. In 1808, Jurine replied to Spinola, by sending him 
the generic character of the insect in question, which he called Pison, 
and considered it as allied to Alyson . Latreille forgetting this, for 
I presume he had Spinola’s book as soon as published, which was 
in 1808, gave in the fourth volume of his “ Genera ,” published in 
1809, at page 57, the characters of the genus Dolichurus, under the 
name of Pison, which he refers to Spinola as the author, and under 
the name of Tachybulus, he gives the characters of the true genus 
Pison. The first error he corrects in the Addenda to the same vo- 
lume ; and the second error he continues in the same place, by 
making J urine’s Pison the synonyme of his Tachybulus. It is needless 
to follow him through his several works; as in the 5th volume of 
Cuvier’s Regne Animal, 2d ed. he corrects his original error, but still 
refers the genus to Spinola, for he expressly says, “ Jurine is not the 
author of the genus Pison.” In vol.2, p. 403, of the Annales de la 
Sociele Entomologique de France, M. Brulle has laid down the cha- 
racters of a genus of Fossorial H ymenoptcra, which lie calls Nephridia, 
and which is identical with Pison. I have consequently been obliged 
to reduce his genus to a synonyme of the old one, and I will beg to 
make an observation or two upon his remarks. I shall say nothing 
upon his waste of words respecting its being parasitic, from the 
structure of its legs, which I have elsewhere* shown, in contro- 
verting St. Fargeau’s theory, to he wholly untenable, and into 
which opinion its first propounder appears to give, by not saying 
a word about it, nor making the least use of it when it would have 
afforded him such abundant materials in his subdivision of the genus 
Crabro. But it was unnecessary of M. Brulle to recapitulate all 
this, as St. Fargeau had already given the entire theory in the first 
number of the same work. It was also unnecessary for him to go 
into his detailed comparison with the genus Alyson, as the first 
* Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, vol. i. p. 52, and Essuy 
on the Indigenous Fossorial Hymenoptera, p. 19, 210, &c. 
