MACQUARTIA.—LABIDIG ASTER. 131 
Face, cheeks, and sides of the front yellowish or pale ochraceous, with brown reflections; front much narrowed 
towards the vertex, but the eyes distinctly separated ; frontal band black, occupying nearly the whole front ; 
cheeks broad, with a trigonal impression; beard black. Antenne rufous; second joint with short black 
bristles ; third joint one and a half times as long as the second, infuscated towards the tip; arista slightly 
thickened in its proximal half. Proboscis black, with the terminal lips rufous ; palpi cylindrical, rufous, 
blackish at the tip. Thorax black, of a bluish tint in front of. the scutellum, laterally and before the 
transverse suture ochraceous or greyish ; thoracic dorsum with four black stripes; scutellum piceous, with 
some ochraceous tomentum. Abdomen ovate, convex; first segment black, shorter than the following 
segments, which are testaceous or dark rufous, with blackish-brown and ochraceous reflecting spots ; discal 
and marginal macrochetw regularly arranged ; ventral surface shining testaceous, with a black median 
stripe. Legs black or piceous (the tibie usually dark rufous), with many bristles, the middle tibisee with 
some longer ones; foot-claws and pulvilli elongate, the claws black, the pulvilli yellowish. Tegule 
greyish-rufous. Wings brownish; curvation of the fourth vein with an acute angle; small cross-vein 
distinctly infuscated, inserted on the middle of the discal cell; apical and posterior cross-veins curved. 
_ Hab. Mexico, Xucumanatlan 7000 feet, Omilteme 8000 feet, Sierra de las Aguas 
Escondidas 9500 feet, all in Guerrero (H. H. Smith). 
Several male specimens. | | otek . 
LABIDIGASTER. | Clainwi in 
Labidigaster, Macquart, Ins. Dipt. du nord de la France, p. 109 (1834). 
I include in this genus a species from Central America which seems to agree in most 
respects with the European Labidigaster forcipata; the latter is unknown to me, but, 
so far as I can judge from the characters indicated by several authors, the Central- 
American insect does not differ from it generically. It is remarkable that the species 
here described has not only the forcipate anus (hitherto unique among the Tachinine), 
but that it is very similar in coloration and other particulars to L. forcipata. 
Schiner places Labidigaster among the genera in which the apical cell is opened at 
some distance before the wing’s tip. In the American species, on the contrary, the 
apical cell ends very near the wing’s tip; but this fully conforms with Meigen’s figure 
of L. forcipata (System. Beschr. europ. zweifliigl. Ins. vii. t. 70. fig. 86) and with his 
description of the genus (/. ¢. p. 228). According to Meigen the eyes should be hairy, 
and in his figure the pilosity of the eyes is represented as very conspicuous; in the 
Central-American species, on the contrary, the eyes are absolutely bare. But this dif- 
ference does not seem to be of much importance, as Schiner, who possessed a specimen 
of L. forcipata, describes (Fauna Austriaca, Dipt. i. p. 436) the eyes as “thinly pilose, 
often bare,” and Rondani, who knew four species, says (Dipt. Ital. Prodr. iv. p. 87) that 
he has observed in none of them any pilosity on the eyes. 
1. Labidigaster furcata, sp.n., 9. (Tab. III. figg. 22,abdomen; 22 a, wing.) 
Shining black; head white; thorax with some grey tomentum and anteriorly with black stripes; anus with a 
small forceps. 
Length 4°5 millim. 
Head rounded; front as broad as the- eyes, the lateral portions parallel; fromtal-band black ; frontal bristles 
descending as far as the end of. the second antennal joint; vibrisse at some distance above the oral 
3 2 
