216 MESSRS. T. BLACKBURN AND P. CAMERON ON THE 



tion of this name without any insect having been described 

 under it. Some time in 1878 I presented to the British 

 Museum a small collection of Hymenoptera containing, 

 among other things, two red-spotted Odyneri (male and 

 female), one specimen of each. Mr. F. Smith described 

 them as the sexes of a new species, which he called 

 0. rubritinctus. As I possessed the other sex of each, I 

 knew that the differences were not sexual. Mr. Smithes 

 lamented death prevented any further communication with 

 him on the subject, but soon afterwards I wrote to his 

 successor at the museum (Mr. W. F. Kirby) regarding 

 this, and others of Mr. Smith's determinations, and the 

 result was that Mr. Kirby published in the ^Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine,' a paper to which he attached my name 

 as well as his own, initialing each constituent part thereof. 

 In this paper he published what I had written to him 

 regarding O. rubritinctus, Sm., and added a note of his 

 own, in which he proposed a new name for the male 

 mentioned above (paying me the compliment of calling it 

 O. Blackburni), and proposed to leave the female (on the 

 ground, I suppose, that Mr. Smith described it before the 

 male) in sole possession of the name O. rubritinctus, Sm. 

 Hence of 0. Blackburni, Kirby, the only description exist- 

 ing is one of less than five lines under the heading 

 " O. rubritinctus" (Linn. Soc. Journ. vol. xiv. p. 674, and 

 "Descriptions of New Species of Hymenoptera in the 

 Collection of the British Museum, 1879''), pointing out 

 its supposed sexual differences from its (supposed) female. 

 I think, therefore, that it will be necessary for me now to 

 describe 0. Blackburni, Kirby, as follows : — 



Subnitidus, parce subtiliter pubescens, punctatus, niger, 

 rufo-maculatus ; alis fuscis (nee violaceis) ; clypeo 

 vix emarginato ; abdominis segmento primo fortiter 



