Unquestionably, this group is closely related to the Crabronidae, where most authorities have placed it; but, to me, the quiet different shaped head, the absence of the basal abscissa of the cubitus in the front wings, and the remarkable formation of the scutellum and postscutellum, characters not found in any other group, seem to justify one in separating it from the Crabronidae and treating it as a distinct family.

The group was first recognized as a subfamily in 1874, by c. G. Thomson, in his Skandinaviens Hymenoptera, Vol. III., p. 256.

The paper in the May number of The Canadian Entomologist on the above subject is very interesting, but does not, in my opinion, entirely conclude the subject. Dr. Fyles proves definitely a considerable range of variability in what he calls congrua, and what is without any doubt antigone, Strecker. It seems to be certain that there are two species having a very similar range of variation—the insect that we call the fall webworm in the larval stage, and the insect bred by Dr. Fyles. Of the variability of cunea there is no doubt. I had not been aware, heretofore, that antigone had anything like the same range.

In the matter of determining what species Walker had before him a number of factors must be considered, as we have not available for ready examination the actual specimens described. In the first place there but three examples, apparently similar, for no variations are mentioned; but all from Georgia, and there is a very considerable range of variation in size; that is, from 16 to 20 lines, or one-third of an inch in a small species.

♀ scale 1.6 to 1.8 mm. in diameter, .5 to .6 mm. in altitude, circular, quite convex, roughish, a light brown with slight tinge of pink; ventral scale thick, white at centre with brown on margin, not easily separated from scale, when detached from host plant leaves but a very slight trace of white; exuviae sublateral, often nearly marginal, orange, covered with whitish secretion.

♀ oval, deep yellow, with dark brown on margin of posterior segment, and yellowish brown about mesal lobes and region of proboscis. When boiled in caustic potash becomes transparent, with mesal lobes a yellowish brown, and region of proboscis a reddish brown.

By the kindness of Prof. L. Bruner I have recently been able to study specimens of the South American Orphula pagana Stal., the type of the genus, and so to compare its structure with that of our native species latterly referred to Orphula. By this it appears, as Mr. Bruner has pointed out to me in correspondence, and as Mr. A. P. Morse has suggested (Psyche, VII., 407), that our species should be referred rathar to Orphulella, separated by Giglio-Tos from Orphula in 1894, though this was afterwards regarded by him as having only a subgeneric value Orphula in the stricter sense of the term is not, so far as I know, represented in the United States. Orphulella is the most widely distributed genus of North American Trypalinae and the most abundant in species. Those known to Prof. J. McNeill in his recent revision of our Tryxalinae were well separated by a table which I have here made the basis of a new one to include a considerable number of new forms. Besides describing these, I have added notes of distribution of the others, based on the collections in my hands, and given their principal synonymy.

Resembling imputans, Osb. & Ball, but with a much longer vertex; vertex longer than in producta, Walk. Olive green, a spot on the middle and another at the tip of each elytron and all below balck. Length, ♀, 4 mm.; ♂, 3.5 mm.; width, 1.75 mm.

Vertex flat, strongly acutely angled, the tip rounding, almost twice as long as the pronotum, fully twice longer than width between eyes, margin sharp, angle with the face acute; front depressed, almost as much above the ocelli as below, lateral margins straight, continuous with those of the clypeus; lorae small, two-thirds the width of the clypeus; pronotum over twice wider than long — half the length within the anterior curve; elytra flaring, venation of the reflex-veined type, the second cross nervure wanting.