NEW OR LITTLE-KNOWN CRANE-FLIES FROM THE AMAZONIAN REGION. 



BY CHARLES P. ALEXANDER. 



The crane-flies that inhabit the vast extent of the Amazonian 

 basin are, unfortunately, still very insufficiently known. The pi- 

 oneer collecting of Henry W. Bates has been supplemented in recent 

 years principally by the work of Herbert S. Parish, whose two trips, 

 in 1912 and in 1919-1920, have given us almost our sole knowledge 

 of this remarkable fauna. The crane-flies collected on Parish's 

 first trip have been recorded by the writer in other papers (1912- 

 1914) that are cited in the bibliography at the end of the paper. 

 The material secured on the second and more extended excursion 

 has been discussed in part in three short papers by the writer (1920). 

 Most of the new species secured on this trip, especially in the terri- 

 tory of the Upper Amazons, are reserved for consideration in the 

 present paper. In order to complete the report, the comparatively 

 few and scattered records of Amazonian Tipuloidea described in 

 other papers are included herein. The types are in the collection 

 of the writer; and paratypes of many of the species in the collection 

 of the American Entomological Society. 



]\Ir. Parish has kindly supplied the writer with a brief account 

 of his trip which is recorded here to give a clear idea of the itinerary 

 of the 1919-1920 excursion: 



"I left New York on the 25th of ]\Iay, 1919, and after a pleasant 

 voyage of fourteen days arrived off the Brazilian coast. * * * 

 The first place which I was to visit was the city of Para, situated 

 175 miles up the Para River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon. 

 Para or Belem is one of the finest cities in the tropics. Its parks 

 and buildings are strictly up-to-date and it also boasts of having 

 a completely equipped electric car-line. A branch of this line runs 

 out to Waterworks, the first place where I collected on this trip. 

 Here in the dense woods that surround the waterworks, and for 

 miles around in this district, I collected many different species of 

 insects, including numerous crane-flies. After remaining in this 

 place for ten days, I travelled by railroad eastward to Igarape- 

 Assii and Prata, where the collecting proved excellent, but great 

 numbers of the insects collected were destroyed by ants and mold 

 caused by the damp climate. From here I continued up the Ama- 

 zon, my next stop being Santarem, about 400 miles from the coast. 

 The forest here was scanty and the insects correspondingly scarce, 



(39) 



