260 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



[June, '16 



Mons. D. Keilin of Paris, a careful student of dipterous 

 larvae, becoming interested in the question at issue, reinvesti- 

 gated the larva of Mycetobia, and determined that the corre- 

 spondence with Rhyphus is even closer than had been sup- 

 posed. Evidently his suspicions were aroused that Mycetobia 

 had been wrongly placed with the Mycetophilidae, for he now 

 suggested to Mr. F. W. Edwards of the British Museum an 

 investigation of the images. The result of Mr. Edwards' 

 study have appeared recently and tend to show that Mycetobia 

 does not belong to the Mycetophilidae, but to the Rhyphidc-e, as 

 was indicated by the larval characters. 3 For the detailed dis- 

 cussion of the characters upon which Mycetobia is referred to 

 the Rhyphidae, the reader must consult Mr. Edwards' original 

 paper. As this will not be generally accessible, the importance 

 of the subject leads me to quote what he has to say regarding 

 the wing-venation : 



The Rhyphidse and Mycetophilidse agree in having a costa which 

 does not extend beyond the tip of the wing, but differ widely in that 

 the former have a three-branched media and a discal cell, whereas the 

 latter never have more than a two-branched media and no discal cell. 



At first sight it is not easy to connect the two types, but if in the 

 wing of Rhyphus we suppress the third branch of the media, and with 

 it the cross-vein forming the discal cell, a condition very much re- 

 sembling that of Mycetobia is arrived at, and the following points of 

 resemblance between the two genera become more apparent : (i) the 



Cur* 



Fig. i. Afycftobia, venation. 



3 On the systematic position of the genus Mycetobia, Mg. Ann. Mag. 

 Nat. Hist., 8 Ser., vol. \7, no. 97, Jan. 1916, pp. 108-116. 



