442 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Yol. IX, No. 4, 
first described as a species by Lloyd and Underwood, and ranging 
from Newfd. and Quebec to Wisconsin and southward to Ala¬ 
bama and the Carolinas. The specimens we have examined 
clearly point to a subordinate relationship to Lycopodium 
lucidulum Michx. rather than to a distinct specific identity. The 
leaves are very minutely denticulate to entire instead of toothed 
as in the species and are generally lance-linear and narrowed from 
the base upwards instead of being broader above the middle as in 
true L. lucidulum. The plant is being critically studied by 
Prof. L. S. Hopkins from whom we may expect a more detailed 
report. 
Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg. 
A SYNONYMICAL DEFINITION OF NYSSON AND 
OF N. AURINOTUS. 
W. H. Patton. 
Acanthostethus, described by Frederick Smith in the 
Transactions of the Entomological Scoiety of London for 1869, 
p. 306, was founded on a female specimen of an Australian 
species, A. basalis Sm. (1 c. and pi. vi, f. 3), and is probably iden¬ 
tical with the “Spalagia” which is mentioned by Shuckard in 
Lardner’s Encyclopedia, but without a word of description, as an 
ally of Nysson. Although Mr. Smith does not appear to have 
appreciated the fact, this insect differs from true Nysson in 
nothing but the union of the first and second submarginal cells 
of the forewing, by the obsolescence of the dividing vein; and in 
this it agrees with the other Australian species, N. mysticus 
Gerst., and with the New Mexican Nysson solani Ckll. (Mis- 
cothvris Sm., 1S60,is a related Australian genus). The Hyponys- 
son of Mr. Cresson presents a precisely similar peculiarity in that, 
as he has pointed out, it differs from Nysson in nothing but the 
union of the third and fourth submarginal cells. 
In his monograph* Gerstaecker has shown that Synneurus 
Costa and Brachvstegus Costa, are but synonyms of Nysson, the 
characters of the presence or absence of a petiole to the third 
submarginal cell of the forewings and the length of the subme- 
dial cell of the hind wings being variable in different individuals 
of the same species and not being in correlation with any other 
characters. 
Turning now to another group of wasps we find that Miscus 
and Ammophila are known to be one genus just as Synneurus 
and Nysson are, and that Coloptera and Ammophila, which I 
have material for proving to be generically inseparable, have 
* Die Arten der Gattung Nysson, Halle, 1867. 
