164 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII. 



as a mosquito. It attacks the wrists chiefly, but is able to pass beneath a sheet 

 and bite the ankles and feet. Many were frequently found full of blood on 

 turning down the bed-clothes. I have met with a similar fly, with the same 

 habits, at Ahmednuggar (Bombay Presidency), India." In some places, at 

 any rate, midges torment domestic animals in addition to human beings. 

 Oecacta furens, Poey, which is found in Cuba (where it is known as the jejen), 

 and is said also to occur in Jamaica and Mexico, chiefly haunts wooded spots 

 near the sea, and is a scourge of man and animals : in New Mexico Tersesthes 

 torrens, Towns., has been caught attacking horses. 



Blepharcceridse :— genus Curupira. 

 No specimens of this genus have actually been observed sucking blood 

 and its inclusion among blood-sucking Diptera is due to the statement by Fritz 

 Midler that a certain number of the females of the only species at present 

 known, Curupira (Paltostoma) torrentium, F. Mull., have mouth-parts of the 

 blood-sucking type, while other females agree with the males in possessing 

 mouth-parts adapted for feeding upon the nectar of flowers. Midler's con- 

 clusion that the two kinds of female both belong to the same species, which 

 therefore presents a striking instance of dimorphism in the female sex, requires 

 confirmation, and it may even ultimately be found that the supposed blood- 

 sucking females merely prey upon other insects and do not feed upon mam- 

 malian blood. Curupira torrentium occurs in Brazil. 



Appearance. — Gnat-like flies, varying from about 4 to 7 mm. in length, with 

 strongly iridescent wings, which are marked with a secondary network of 

 crease-like lines in addition to the veins. 



Life-history. — The larvse are curious wood-louse-like creatures, living in 

 swiftly flowing streams and torrents, in which they attach themselves to bare 

 rocks and stones by means of a row of median ventral suckers. The ordinary 

 segmentation is not visible, but the sides of the body are scolloped out into a 

 series of prominent lobes. The pupa, which bears a pair of respiratory horns 

 in front, is strongly convex above and flattened beneath ; it is found with the 

 larvae, so firmly attached to the rocks, apparently by means of a chitinous 

 exudation from the underside, that it is not easy to remove it uninjured. 



Habits of the perfect insects. — At present unknown. In all probability the 

 males, like those of European species belonging to this family, dance in swarms 

 in the air over the streams in which the preliminary stages are passed. 



Simulidse (in In- 

 dia known as Sand- 

 flies, Fipsa, or Potu 

 flies ; in British 

 Columbia as Brii- 

 lots, by the French 

 Canadian trappers ; 

 in the United 

 States as Black 

 flies, Buffalo-gnats, 



and Turkey -gnats). 

 PIG. 2. —Simulium venastum, &ay^(reptans, L.) O N. America. 



(X 12.) 



