287 STUDIES ON AUSTRALIAN THYNNIDAE (HYMENOPTERA) . II. A Short History of Thynnid Taxonomy. By K. E. W. Salter, Department of Zoology, University of Sydney. [Read 31st October, 1956.] Synopsis. An account is given of investigations leading to the recognition of the generic characters, geographical distribution, and association of the very dissimilar sexes, as well as an account of the promotion of the Fabrician genus Thynnus to the family category Thynnidae. Male wasps became known to science as Thynnus and females as Tiphia in 1775. Subsequently, as collections came from Australia many new species were described and new genera were erected. These genera were later grouped together into a single genus Thynnus by Klug, whose ideas strongly influenced Smith, and later Dalla Torre (1897). Not till early in this century was the genus Thynnus reclassified into a number of genera, firstly by Ashmead (1903) and later by R. B. Turner. This author published a major revision with the first key to species in 1907-8 and a generic revision in 1910. He described many new species. It has now been suggested by Pate (1947) that the reduction of Thynnidae and some half dozen related families to the rank of subfamilies of the family Tiphiidae would better illustrate their phylogenetic relationships. Introduction. The history of Thynnid taxonomy forms part of a project which, when completed, will be a monographic revision of the family. It is the second paper of this series and follows in sequence with the catalogue read to this Society on 25th November, 1953. Revisions bring their changes, and it is anticipated that some modifications of former classifications will be suggested. A brief account is presented here of the contributions on the Thynnidae made by earlier naturalists, which are now our heritage. The works of these contributors are reviewed in chronological order, and the influence exerted by one author over others is most evident. There is a great deal to be learnt from an examination of the achievements of these pioneers, and it is most interesting to trace the account of the discoveries they made of the various features which are of fundamental significance in this study. The object of the present paper is to review the work of some forty naturalists published between 1775 and 1947, as taxonomic revisions are founded on the achieve-ments of earlier workers. It is the second step in this revision and tells of the accumulation of our knowledge of Thynnidae over a period of one hundred and thirty-eight years. The present paper is an acknowledgement of the achievements of former workers, as the information they have compiled on the numerous known species makes it possible to carry out further investigation in this field. Summary. Fabricius introduced flower-wasps to Science when he described them from the Joseph Banks collection. The male specimens he called Thynnus dentatus, Thynnus emarginatus, and Thynnus integer, while certain apterous, ant-like individuals in the collection he named Tiphia pedestris, unaware that they were the females of his new genus Thynnus. Since Fabricius, many naturalists have contributed towards our
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