27 



while in his Monograph of the North American Proctotrupidae 

 (1893) he agreed with Westwood and Forster in placing them 

 in the Proctotrupids, seeing a relationship with the Ceraphro- 

 mnae, which are still leTt in the Proctotrupidae. 



The super-family Vespoidea of Ashmead appears to me an 

 unnatural assemblage of forms, and by no means comparable 

 with, or equivalent to, the very natural series comprised under 

 the Apoidea and Sphegoidea. It is very doubtful whether the 

 old classification into Anthophila, Fossores and Diploptera is 

 any way improved by the severance of one main division of the 

 Fossores and by its addition to the Diploptera, to which are 

 also added the Bethylidae, Dryinidae and Chrysididae, etc., to 

 form a super-family. 



If we examine tlie characters laid down for the separation of 

 the super-family Vespoidea, we find that this depends on the 

 fact of the "pronotum extending back to the tegulae. or the 

 latter absent." Yet in great numbers of winged female Dryinids 

 the pronotum does not extend back to these, and in great num- 

 bers of the Chrysididae the hind angles of the pronotum not only 

 do not attain, but are quite remarkably distant from, the tegulae. 



As therefore the Bethylidae (incl. Dryinidae) and the Chrysi- 

 didae do not fall naturally into one great super-family with the 

 \>spidae, and can only be placed therein by disregarding the 

 characters assigned to the Vespoidea, it seems to me better to 

 recognize this fact. Of course by employing alternatives, such 

 as the character of the abdominal segments, etc., for the Chrysi- 

 didae and the chelate tarsi of the Dryinidae, these families might 

 be made to fit in the Vespoid series, or anywhere else for that 

 matter, yet such a procedure will hardly carry conviction to the 

 n;ajority of hymenopterists. 



To me the Dryinidae together with the allied Bethylidae and 

 the small and little known sub-family Emboleminae* of Ash- 

 mead (which may probably be merged in one or other of these) 

 constitute a natural group, synthetic between the old Fossorial 

 series of the Aculeata and the true Proctotrupidae; while the 

 Chrysididae also constitute a group apart, which cannot be 

 r'ghtly merged in the Bethylid series, nor yet in the Aculeata. 



Dr. Ashmead considers the Dryinidae as "evidently an ancient 

 phylogenetic type of the order, the chelate anterior tarsi in the 



* My knowledse of this sub- family is ac<iuired from Ashniearl's standard work on the 

 Proptntrupids of Nortli America, and from an nndescribed inse<'t which I refer to this 

 gronp, thnnuii its strnctures will neeessitate chansrt-s in the characters assigned to the 

 Emboleminae. The larva is an external parasite of small crickets of the gemis 

 Trigonidium or allied forms, and like the Dryinidae leaves the several larval skins 

 behind, as a ruptured sac, after the penultimate larval ecdysis. 



