Page:The Gall Wasp Genus Cynips.pdf/89

 generation ago, when the mere fact of the existent species was hardly conceived. It becomes evident that the complexity of many a group may still be far beyond anything of which we are yet cognizant. Surely, taxonomic research is but on the threshold of data from which we may ultimately proceed to sound conclusions on matters of prime concern in the science of biology.

CYNIPS Linnaeus

Details of synonomy and type fixation are given under the several subgenera. As here defined the genus includes:

Cynips Linnaeus, 1758 (in part), Syst. Nat. Ed. 10, 1:553.

Philonix Fitch, 1859, 5th Rpt., Nox. Ins. N.Y.: 783.

Dryophanta Förster, 1869, Verh. zoo.-bot. Ges. Wien 19:335.

Acraspis Mayr, 1881, Gen. gallenbew. Cynip.: 2, 29.

Sphaeroteras Ashmead, 1897, Psyche 8:67.

Antron Kinsey, new subgenus.

Besbicus Kinsey, new subgenus.

Atrusca Kinsey, new subgenus.

AGAMIC AND BISEXUAL FEMALE.—In the agamic form generally rufous, rufous brown, and piceous in color, less often light brownish rufous or black, the abdomen usually darker than the thorax; the body of the bisexual female almost entirely black.

Head distinctly narrower than the thorax if the thorax is distinctly robust, nearly as wide as the thorax if the thorax is more slender as it is with most forms, distinctly wider than the thorax if the wings are short and the thorax consequently reduced; the cheeks more or less protruding beyond the eyes (in the agamic female) or the eyes larger and extending as far as or slightly beyond the cheeks (in the bisexual female); malar space between one-third and one-half the length of the compound eyes, quite without a malar furrow or at most with a faint indication of a furrow; with a low, broad, more or less indefinite median ridge; head irregularly coriaceous to finely rugose, scatteringly hairy, the hairs light yellowish, longest on the face and about the edges of the head, the vertex more naked. Antennae rufous to dark brown or black, often brighter basally, finely hairy (less so in the bisexual female), of moderate length or long, always slender, hardly enlarged terminally; with 13 to 15 segments, the first of moderate length, swollen, vase-shaped, the second no longer than wide, the third a third or more longer than the fourth, the penultimate segment a little longer than wide, the last one-quarter to one-half again as long as the preceding, the last two segments sometimes incompletely separated.

Thorax moderately large to very large and heavy (in long-winged varieties), or much reduced in size (in short-winged varieties), usually a little longer than high (as high as long in short-winged varieties), three-quarters again as long as wide in short-winged varieties, nearly