4. CHRYSOPS SURDUS n. sp.-Female.-Very like C. proclivis, but differs in being smaller; the facial callosities are black and shining on both sides of the dividing furrow; being prolonged anteriorly, they coalesce above the mouth; the ferruginous space between them is a narrow stripe, interrupted anteriorly. The thoracic dorsum anteriorly shows two distinct gray longitudinal lines, reaching to about the middle of the thorax; the pile on the pleuræ is of a paler yellow. On abdominal segments 1 and 2, the elongated black square is more distinctly coarctate on the hind margin of the first segment; on segment 3 there is a yellow dividing line in the middle, but the lateral yellow marks in most cases do not exist. The prevailing color of all the legs is black, with only a little reddish at the base of the four posterior tibiæ and tarsi. The design on the wings does not show any important difference. Length 7-8mm

Hab.-Webber Lake, Sierra County, California, July 21. Four

females.

The eyes of this species have the normal coloration (like the figure 1 in my Prodrome).

Family LEPTIDE.

As far as the small number of known Leptide from California enables me to judge, this family exhibits, on the Pacific slope, a more European than Eastern American character.

The striking forms of golden-haired Chrysopile, the principal feature of the fauna of the Atlantic States, are replaced here by small and insignificant species.

The genus Triptotricha, however, hitherto peculiar to North America, seems equally well represented in the Atlantic and Pacific States. The considerable number of Californian species of Symphoromyia and the abundance of specimens are remarkable.

TRIPTOTRICHA LAUTA Loew, Centur., x, 15.—California.

TRIPTOTRICHA DISCOLOR Loew, Berl. Ent. Zeitschr., 1874, p. 379.— California.

I have neither of these species. A specimen which I found near Lake Tahoe, Sierra Nevada, July 19, seems to be different from both.

LEPTIS COSTATA Loew, Centur., ii, 4.-Not rare in Marin and Sonoma Counties, California. The front and hind legs of my five specimens are not as dark as described; but the coloring of the legs seems to be very variable.

LEPTIS INCISA Loew, Centur., x, 16.-The female alone is described; the male has usually much darker femora; the coloring of these, however, is very variable in both sexes. One of my females has a pale reddish scutellum; another has it black at base, reddish toward the tip. Not rare in Marin County in April.

CHRYSOPILA HUMILIS Loew, Berl. Ent. Zeitschr., 1874, p. 379.Male. "Atra, opaca, tota pilis lutescentibus vestita; tibiæ testaceæ,

apicem versus fuscæ; tarsi toti fusci; alæ saturate cinereæ, stigmate fusco. Long. corp. 2 lin.; long. al. 111 lin." (About 4.4 and 4.2mm.)

"Black, opaque; antennæ, palpi and knob of halteres of the same color. The erect pubescence of the whole body, and likewise that of the palpi and coxæ pale luteous-yellow, only that of the frontal tubercle a little darker, so that it looks almost black when held against the light. Femora black, at the tip pale luteous-yellowish; their short tomentum of an impure whitish. The luteous-yellowish tibiæ become gradually brown towards the tip, and the feet are tinged with brown, except sometimes at the base of the first joint. Wings with an intense grayish tinge; the stigma dark brown, of a medium breadth and length; the wingveins blackish-brown.

"Hab.-San Francisco (H. Edwards)."

A species of which I found several males near Los Angeles in March differs from this description in having the pubescence of the body golden-yellow, rather than luteous; that of the femora likewise goldenyellow; that of the palpi decidedly black; the stigma is brown, but not dark brown.

A specimen from Webber Lake, California, July 24, has longer and less brownish wings, but a darker stigma; first antennal joint with long bristles, which do not exist in the specimens from Los Angeles; palpi very long; pleuræ grayish; pubescence of the abdomen whitish. I cannot identify either of these species with the above description. ATHERIX VARICORNIS Loew, Centur., x, 13.-Female.-I do not know this species.

SYMPHOROMYIA sp.-Half a dozen species which I took in Marin and Sonoma Counties in April and May, and about Webber Lake in July, all have the anal cell open, and therefore belong to the genus Symphoromyia Frauenfeld (Ptiolina Schiner, not Zetterstedt). California seems to be much richer in this group than Europe or the Atlantic States of North America. But as these species resemble each other very closely, and as both sexes often differ in coloring, I deem it more prudent not to attempt to describe them.

The female of one of these species which I observed near Webber Lake stings quite painfully, and draws blood like a Tabanus. I am not aware of the fact having ever been noticed before concerning any species of Leptide.

Family NEMESTRINIDE.

Hirmoneura brevirostris Macquart, Dipt. Exot., suppl., i, p. 101, tab. 20, f. 1, from Yucatan, is the only species of this family hitherto recorded as occurring north of the Isthmus of Panama. I describe a species from Texas, of which I have a single specimen, the only Nemestrinid from North America I have ever seen. This scarcity is the more remarkable, as the regions of Central Asia, which, in other respects, show many faunal analogies with the western plains and California, are very rich in

species of that family. Many species occur in the countries round the Mediterranean. Dr. Philippi enumerates not less than twenty one species from Chili (!).

HIRMONEURA CLAUSA n. sp.-Body clothed with pale yellowish-gray hair; antennæ and feet reddish; eyes bare; second submarginal and second posterior cells closed and petiolate at the distal end. Long. corp. 9-10mm

Face densely covered with pale yellowish hair, through which a short, reddish proboscis is hardly visible; antennæ reddish; front clothed with the same pale yellowish hair; vertex black, with a tuft of black hair; behind it, on the occiput, a tuft of yellow hair. Eyes bare. Thorax clothed with the same pale yellowish hair, especially dense on the pleuræ and pectus; on the dorsum, the black ground-color is visible; the posterior corners, as well as the hind margin of the scutellum, are reddish-brown. Abdomen black, clothed with the same pale yellowish hair. Halteres reddish. Legs brownish-red; femora clothed with pale yellowish, erect pile, especially on their proximal half. Wings hyaline; the veins near the costa reddish-brown; the second submarginal cell is closed, eye-like, long-petiolate at the distal end; the second posterior cell (that is, the cell which is separated from the second submarginal by a single cell, the first posterior, which opens at the apex of the wing) is also closed, with a petiole at the distal end half as long as the petiole of the second submarginal; the third posterior cell is closed (as usual in this genus).

Hab.-Dallas, Texas (Boll). A single specimen, apparently a female. The venation of this species is like that of H. brevirostris Macquart (Dipt. Exot., suppl., i, tab. 20, f. 1), except that the second postcrior cell is closed, and the petiole of the second submarginal is longer than represented on the figure.

Family BOMBYLIDE.

The Bombylidae are perhaps the most characteristic and one of the most abundantly represented families of Diptera in the western region, including California. Nevertheless, the results obtained by me in working up this family are not at all in proportion to the number of species col lected. I have been very much hampered, on the one hand, by the unsat isfactory condition of the systematic distribution of the Bombylidæ in general; on the other, by the insufficiency of my eastern material and the impossibility of identifying the large number of existing descriptions of eastern species.

For fear of increasing the difficulties of the future student, I have confined myself to the description only of the more striking forms; and, at the same time, in order to facilitate his task, I have taken advantage of this opportunity for reviewing all that has been hitherto done for North American Bombylidæ. A list of all the described species from

North America north of Mexico, distributed as far as possible among the genera where they belong, will be found on the following pages.* An analytical table of all the genera hitherto found in the United States is also given.

From the very circumstance that the Bombylidæ are one of the most numerously represented families of Diptera in the Western Territories, it follows that it would be premature now to attempt any generalization about their geographical distribution. The following remarks, based upon the existing data, are therefore only provisional.

Among the group of Anthracina, the genera Anthrax, Exoprosopa, and Argyramaba are abundantly represented both in the Atlantic and Pacific States, but probably more so in the latter. The new genus

Dipalta, with a single species, occurs in Colorado and in California as well as in Georgia.

The North American species of the group Lomatina, which I have seen, have the general appearance of Anthrax, but, at the same time, a very short præfurca, with the small cross-vein far beyond its end, and the eyes contiguous in the male. They differ from the Bombylina in the globular shape of the head, the very large size of the frontal triangle of the male, and often in the Anthrax-like antennæ, more or less distant from each other at the base. The genus Oncodocera, with O. leucoprocta from the Atlantic States, belongs here. I have introduced the new genus Triodites, with one species from California and Utah. I possess a species from Colorado, which will require the formation of a new genus; I do not describe it at present. Anisotamia eximia Macq. ( : Anthrax valida Wied.) from Mexico is related to Oncodocera. From Mr. Loew's statements about Aphobantus and Leptochilus, both new genera, with a single species from Texas, I judge that they likewise. belong to this group. The Stygia elongata Say (Lomatia elongata Wied.) is evidently not a Lomatia, and perhaps not a Bombylid at all. I have never seen it.

The Toxophorina are represented as yet only by one Toxophora from California and by several from the Atlantic States. A single Systropus occurs in the Atlantic States.

The Bombylina are represented by the genera Bombylius, Systœchus, and Sparnopolius. From Systœchus I have separated the genus Anastœchus which also occurs in Europe. Pantarbes nov. gen., with a single species from California, is not unlike Mulio. Lordotus Lw., with one species, occurs in Colorado, Wyoming, and Texas, as well as in California, Comastes nov. gen., with one species from Texas, is a very original and interesting form. Ploas is represented by seven species from California,

* In identifying species from the United States, the descriptions of species from the West Indies and Mexico must not be quite neglected, as some of these species may have a wide northerly range. Lists of these species will be found in my Catalogue of the Described Diptera of North America, Smithsonian Institution, 1858. The species published since will be found in Loew's "Centuries", in Jaennicke's "Exotische Diptern", and in Bellardi's " Saggio".

Geron occurs

one from New Mexico, and one from the Southern States. everywhere. Two Phthiria are known from the Atlantic States, one more from Colorado, and three from California.

The most interesting addition to the North American fauna in this family is Epibates, a new genus, the male sex in which is distinguished by a muricate surface of the thoracic dorsum. I have not less than seven species in it, four from the Pacific coast, two from the Atlantic States, and one uncertain.

As a general result, I will state that the large genera of this family occurring in the United States are universal or nearly universal genera. The genera peculiar to the fauna, with the exception of Epibates, are all as yet monotypical. The genera which do not belong to either of these two categories are:-Ploas, which, besides North America, occurs, as far as I know, only in the fauna of the Mediterranean and Central Asia. It is singular that it has not been recorded from South America. Systropus counts several species in Mexico and South America, also at the Cape, and in Australia. Toxophora occurs in Algiers, Syria, the Cape, Brazil, and Java. Phthiria is found in the Mediterranean region and in Central Asia, at the Cape, also in Brazil and Chili.

A fact worth noticing is the common occurrence of some species of Bombylidæ in both hemispheres, or, if the specific identity is contested, at least the great resemblance between some species in Europe and America.

The European Bombylius major seems to be the same as the most common species in California. B. fratellus, from the Atlantic States, is very little different from it. Systœchus vulgaris and Anastachus barbatus are remarkably like the European species of the same genera. Anthrax dorcadion n. sp. (= the true A. capucina F.) is the same, or nearly the same, as the species known as A. capucina in Europe.

Of all families of Diptera orthorhapha, hardly any have been so imperfectly studied in their organization as the Bombylida. By gradual additions, the number of genera has reached very near seventy, and nevertheless the discrimination of the essential characters on which to base a classification may be said not to have been even begun. Dr. Schiner (Novara, p. 115) proposed a subdivision of the family in four groups, the Anthracina, Lomatina, Toxophorina, and Bombylina. But, as he did not characterize these groups, this subdivision can have but very little value. It would seem self-evident that any attempt at a subdivision must be preceded by a thorough study of the outward organization of these insects; nevertheless, this has never been done yet. The thick fur, the hairs and scales, which cover the whole body, or certain parts of it, render such a study difficult, unless that covering is removed; and many an important character may have been overlooked, owing to the neglect of undergoing that trouble. As an instance of such an oversight, I will mention the remarkable epimeral hooks which exist in most of the genera of the Anthracina above the root of the