CONTRIBUTION TO THE TAXONOMY OF ASIATIC 

 WASPS OF THE GENUS TIPHIA (SCOLIIDAE) 



By H. W. Allen and H. A. Jaynes, 



Of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture 



INTRODUCTION 



Since 1920, workers on the Japanese beetle project of the United 

 States Bureau of Entomology have been searching in the Orient for 

 suitable parasites to introduce into the United States for use against 

 the Japanese beetle in this country. In the course of this work a 

 large amount of material on the genus Tiphia was gradually accumu- 

 lated, and considerable information on the ecology and life history 

 of a number of the species was gathered. Satisfactory determinations 

 of these species, however, could not be obtained. The writers there- 

 fore began during the winter of 1926-27 a study of the material 

 accumulated in the Japanese Beetle Laboratory and in the United 

 States National Museum. It was soon found that a considerable 

 number of species was represented. The original descriptions of 

 many oriental forms proved unsatisfactory because most of the char- 

 acters used in these descriptions appear, in the light of present knowl- 

 edge, to have little or no diagnostic value. Fortunately, Mr. A. B. 

 Gahan of the Bureau of Entomology was able to spend a few days 

 examining types in the British Museum and comparing them with 

 sj^ecimens sent him and with manuscript keys to species, and was able 

 to indicate the identity of several species with previously described 

 forms. In addition to these species, a number of others, new to 

 science, are described in this paper. 



The inadequacy of some of the descriptions is probably due in no 

 small measure to the use of inferior optical equipment by the earlier 

 workers on the group. The writers have found the wide field binocu- 

 lar microscope giving a magnification of about 60 diameters and a 

 powerful artificial light almost indispensable for clearly revealing 

 some of the minute characters that have been found most valuable 

 in differentiating species. The large number of reared specimens of 



No. 2814.— Proceedings of U. S. National Museum. Vol. 76. Art. 17 

 G1542— 30 1 1 



