274 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 817 



family Chalcidida3 (= superf amily Chalcidoi- 

 dea Ashmead) which is of such magnitude 

 and seeming importance that it warrants more 

 or less extended notice in these pages. The 

 volume is twice the size of Ashmead's monu- 

 mental work on this complex group" and its 

 general appearance would indicate that an 

 epoch-making treatment of the superfamily 

 was before us. However, disappointment is 

 sure to follow upon examination of the volume, 

 for its general incompetence and defectiveness 

 are soon revealed, and in fact have already 

 been pointed out by one reviewer. The work 

 certainly is but a huge compilation based 

 mainly on the work of Ashmead, but this is 

 not the reason it loses value as a fitting work 

 of reference to the group. An accurate com- 

 pilation of the tabular arrangements of the 

 various groups of this complex would be of 

 the greatest importance in serving to advance 

 our knowledge of it, but this would needs be 

 critical and tend to weed out the obvious 

 errors existing in former works. This volume 

 before us, however, is lacking not only in inde- 

 pendence of spirit, but also in that nice dis- 

 crimination which is so much to be desired in 

 works of this kind and it is non-critical and 

 loosely put together. It is hardly exagger- 

 ating to say that it is as full of errors nearly 

 as the sum of errors existing in the whole 

 literature of the group, and is especially at 

 fault in the treatment of some of the less 

 known groups where judgment and discrim- 

 ination are most needed and thus far con- 

 spicuous for their absence. As it is highly 

 desirable that the status of this work of Dr. 

 Schmiedeknecht's be made known so that it 

 will not mislead, I select the family Tricho- 

 grammidse for more extended notice, as it is 

 a small group of about fourteen genera badly 

 in need of revision and on that account an 

 excellent specimen of the general defectiveness 

 of the whole work; for if the latter possessed 

 value it should certainly tend to bring order 



^ " Classification of the Chalcid Flies or the 

 Superfamily Chalcidoidea, with etc.," Memoirs 

 Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, I. {Publications of 

 the Carnegie Museum, serial No. 21), pp. v-ix, 

 225-551, pis. XXXI.-XXXIX., 1904. 



out of the crudeness and confusion at present 

 existing in this family. But see what we have 

 here. 



A first glance at the treatment of this fam- 

 ily (or subfamily as Schmiedeknecht prefers 

 to style it) shows to a specialist that nearly all 

 essentials of it are paraphrased from the work 

 of Ashmead previously alluded to. A single 

 example is all that is necessary to show this. 

 Thus, immediately preceding the table of the 

 genera of the subfamily Trichogramminae 

 Ashmead states : 



Subfamily II. TEiCHOGBAMinN^ 



This subfamily is easily recognized by peculiari- 

 ties of the front wings, the pubescence, being ar- 

 ranged in distinct rows or lines, a peculiarity 

 found in no other group, except to a slight extent 

 in some genera in the subfamily Entedoninae, of 

 the family Eulophinae. 



In the corresponding place Schmiedeknecht 

 gives this : 



2. Tribus Trichogrammini 



Trichogramminffi, Subfamily 2. Ashmead, Mem. 



Carnegie Mus., Vol. I., p. 360, 1904. 



Allgemeine Charaktere. — Die hierher gehoren- 

 den Arten sind ausgezeichnet durch die regelmas- 

 sigen Haarreichen der Fliigel. Im beschrankten 

 Masstabe kommt diese Erscheinung nur noch bei 

 einzelnen Entedoninen vor. 



These two paragraphs are essentially the 

 same in meaning. And this is so throughout, 

 only Schmiedeknecht adds after the table of 

 genera of each of the two tribes or subfamilies 

 a brief treatment of each of the genera in- 

 cluding synonymy, description and catalogue 

 of the species, while Ashmead confined himself 

 entirely to a tabulation of the genera. It is 

 in blindly copying these latter and slavishly 

 following Ashmead in regard to generic diag- 

 noses that our author is most seriously cul- 

 pable. At the very outset he falls too readily 

 into the probable error of accepting the genus 

 Oligosita Haliday as the type of the first divi- 

 sion of the group which is perhaps Brachista 

 Haliday. In this first division of the group 

 we find exactly the same tabulation of the five 

 genera as given by Ashmead with all of his 

 errors, partly excusable here with him because 

 of the date of the appearance of his work, but 



