Mar. 1899.] Ashmead: On Synopses of Families of Hvmenoptera. 45 SUPER-FAMILIES IN THE HYMENOPTERA AND GENERIC SYNOPSES OF THE FAMILIES THYN-NIDiE, MYRMOSID^ AND MUTILLID^. By William H. Ashmead, Assistant Curator, Department of Insects, U. S. A'ational Aluseum. The three families, Thynnidffi, Myrmosidce and Mutillidae have never been properly defined, or characterized, and their genera, at present, on account of the diversity between the sexes, and the diffi-culties attending their proper correlation, are in utter confusion, and often wrongly placed. This confusion is also due, to a certain extent, to a lack of sufficient study, and the careless and insufficient charac-terization of some of the species and genera by the original describers, so that until lately it has been impossible to bring them into anything like order. This statement is well exemplified in Blake's description of the genus Photopsis. The genus is not only most carelessly and meagrely described, but the type of the genus is not mentioned ; besides Blake has placed in it species that do not agree at all with his meagre de-scription. I find placed in it, and in another geuus characterized by him, representing females, representatives of no less than six distinct genera, some of which do not belong to the Mutillidae at all, but to an allied family, characterized here under the name Myrmosidc'e. During the past two or three years I have devoted much time to the study of large series of the Mutillida;, and the closely allied families, and have been able to correlate the sexes of most of the genera, either from specimens bred, taken in coitu, or from structural characters. The results of these studies I desire to present here succinctly, with the hope that it will help to clear up much of the existing confusion in these families, and thus make it easier sailing for other students. The Hymenoptera may be conveniently separated into ten very natural superfamilies, and these again into minor families. In order that these may be recognized and to show the position that I believe the Thynnidae, Myrmosida^ and Mutillidae should occupy, I give below a table for distinguishing these superfamilies, and a table of the families of the Vespoidea, the superfamily to which they belong. Attention is also called to the position assigned the Vespidae, Eu-
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