6 I THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



THE DIPTEROUS GENUS IMITOMYIA TNS. (HIMANTOSTOMA LW.). 



BY J. M. ALDRICH, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



Loew described Himantostoma sugens as number 87 of his Fourth Century 

 of N. A. Diptera, in BerHner Ent. Zeitschrift for 1863. He appended a note 

 describing the genus as new also; it contained but the one species, based on a 

 single male specimen, the locality being given as Illinois. 



Until recent years this genus remained an enigma to dipterists. Coquillett 

 in his Revision of N. A. Tachinida?, 1897, 40, mentions it among those unknown 

 to him. Adams, in Williston's Manual, 1908, 377, lists it among those which 

 he cannot place in his table. Townsend, however, states in his Taxonomy of 

 the Muscoidean Flies, 1908, 126, that he has seen the type; without further 

 comment he places it in his tribe Clistomorphini, family Phasiida?. Later 

 (Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., XIV, 49, 1912) he proposes Imitomyia to replace Himan- 

 tostoma, which is preoccupied by Agassiz in Coelenterata in 1862; this time he 

 refers the genus without comment to tribe Eutherini, subfamily Pseudodexiinse, 

 family Exoristidse. 



In 1915 Harrison E. Smith published the new genus and species, Saskatche- 

 wania canadensis (Can. Ent., XLVII, 153), based on two males and four females 

 taken at Farwell Creek, Saskatchewan. A few months later when visiting me he 

 stated that Dr. Townsend believed this to be the long-lost Himantostoma sugens. 



On June 18, 1918, I collected thirteen females of sugens at Minot, N.D., 

 on flowers of ox-eye daisy growing in low ground (slough or hay land among small 

 timber) near the Mouse River just above the city. One of these I later sent to 

 Nathan Banks at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, who compared it with 

 the type of sugens and pronounced it the same species. My material exactly 

 fits Mr. Smith's excellent description of Saskatcheivania canadensis, and was 

 taken about 60 miles from the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. 



Since the species has been rediscovered in the northern plains region, it 

 would appear quite likely that the original specimen came from there also. 

 Osten Sacken received much material from Robert Kennicott (see his Record of 

 My Life Work, p. 35), who collected in Illinois as well as in the far north for him; 

 so there was an opportunity for error before the specimens reached Osten Sacken. 



In 1897 Thalhammar (Termesz. Ftizetek, XX, 145) described a Himan- 

 tostoma hungarica from Hungary. Bezzi in the Palsearctic Catalogue made this 

 a synonym of Ancistrophora mikii Schiner. 



The genus was described by Professor Bezzi in Boll, de Lab. Zool. Portici, 

 XII, 86-93, 1917. Here he recognizes hungarica as a valid species of Himan- 

 tostoma, and describes a species from North Africa as H. mochii. In receiving 

 this paper from the author in 1918, I sent him a specimen of the type species 

 sugens, and he has since informed me that neither of the old-world species is 

 congeneric; hungarica he puts back as it was in his catalogue, and has proposed 

 a new genus for mochii, which is still I believe unpublished. 



A new description of the genus and species is unnecessary, since Mr. Smith 

 has givefi a complete one which is readily accessible. I will add, however, that 

 in the table in Coquillett's revision Imitomyia will come out at couplet 6, page 

 30, where it separates by possessing a long, slender proboscis and very striking 

 flat facial carina; and in Adams's table it runs to couplet 10, p. 361, where it 

 separates on the same characters. 



March, 1919 



