86 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., 'l/ 



OPENING UP A NEW FIELD. 



The Thomas Say Foundation of the Entomological Society of Amer- 

 ica has certainly introduced a worthy and valuable addition to entomo- 

 logical literature, namely, a revision entitled SARCOPHAGA AND ALLIES IN 

 NORTH AMERICA, by J. M. ALDRICH. This work, appearing in octavo 

 size, containing 302 pages and 16 plates, treats especially of the North 

 American and also of some South American species of the Muscoid 

 family Sarcophagidae sens, strict., containing the large genus Sarco- 

 phaga. The American species of this dipterous family have been a taboo 

 to all students, mainly on account of the numerous unrecognizable de- 

 color and characters of its species, 

 scriptions, of the scattered location of types, and of the similarity of 



The present paper is a preliminary revision of the North American 

 species. The family as limited here may be characterized as follows : 

 Eyes bare; proboscis stout, short; palpi distinct; parafacials with orbital 

 setulae ; arista plumose both sides on at least basal half. Scutellum 

 with at most one pair of discal macrochaetae. Abdomen generally gray 

 or silvery and tessellated ; the segments without discal macrochaetae. 

 Fourth vein of wing subangularly bent and ending in the costa distinctly 

 before apex. 



This throws out some species that may very properly be placed in 

 other allied families, or may have to be included when the limits of 

 the family are more thoroughly understood. The author has been very 

 consistent in the recognition of genera. Those not distinguishable in 

 both sexes are not recognized as valid but are suggested as possible 

 subgenera, although not treated as such in the present work. As the 

 author says in his introduction : "A survey of the present status of the 

 Muscoid Diptera indicates unmistakably that our present great need is 

 not more genera, but a more complete knowledge of species. . . . 

 One of the main objects of the present work is to make the identification 

 of species as simple and certain as possible. . . . This object would 

 inevitably be defeated by the erection of a considerable number of 

 indistinctly separated genera." Let us hope that this family will not 

 be invaded by the mathematical taxonomist with his generic formulae. 



Of the sixteen genera included and treated, eight are new. Among 

 these 145 species and varieties are distributed, of which 125 are placed 

 in the genus Sarcophaga, and 101 of these are described as new. A 

 few European species are recognized and the status of some previously 

 described American species have been established. A case of the latter, 

 Sarcophaga sarraccniae Riley, illustrates the value of establishing a 

 single type for a species. The species are based primarily on the male 

 sex, which offers very definite characters in the genitalia, but in most 

 cases, however, the other sex is recognized where possible in the de- 

 scriptions, and possesses many of the characters of the male which 

 can be used as guides to the determination. It is unfortunate that the 

 females are not so readily determined, but after the species have been 



