THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 339 



(Ann. Nat. Hist., XXII, 187, 1838, as Oscinis). Thus the type 

 species becomes Dicrceus raptus Hal. Loew gives as generic 

 characters that the costa ends before reaching the fourth vein, 

 the hind cross vein is absent, and the second vein is straight, un- 

 usually long, and parallel with the third. He placed it in Chloro- 

 pinse on the costal character. Becker (op. cit., 109) finds five 

 species of the genus in Europe, of which only one lacks the hind 

 cross vein, while three have the costa fully reaching the fourth 

 vein. Thus he makes absence of the cross vein only specific 

 (Strobl, in Tief's Nachlass, 64, 1901, had argued that it is merely 

 varietal) ; and what is more surprising, he reduces to specific value 

 in this little group the costal character also, which elsewhere in 

 the family is decidedly of subfamily importance, and has been 

 so consideted by Becker himself (the first dipterist to make use 

 of the character was Fallen, Oscinides, 1820, p. 3; he separates two 

 groups of his genus Oscinis by it). In Becker's use of Dicrseus, 

 the chief generic character is the unusually long second vein; he 

 places the genus, I think correctly, in Oscininse close to Oscinis. 



In his treatment of the nearctic Oscinids (Mon., IV, 103, 1912), 

 Becker mentions the European Dicrceus ingratiis Loew (Zeitsch. 

 f. Ent. Breslau, XX, 26, 1866, as Eutropha) as occurring in Idaho 

 and Washington, but says the specimens have a little shorter 

 second vein than the European. However, on examining my two 

 Idaho specimens returned by him, I find that they have the costa 

 evidently reaching the fourth vein, so they would not go to ingratus 

 in Becker's own table of the European species. The same is true 

 of all but one of about 70 specimens that I have since accumulated. 

 The character is possibly not of specific value, though so taken by 

 Becker. I have not seen European material, and the case is not 

 free from doubt; but in view of the discrepancies and the geo- 

 graphical separation I believe myself justified in describing ours 

 as a distinct species. The figure of the wing shows the course of 

 the second vein, which is the main" generic character; the rest is 

 included in the description. 



Dicraeus incongruus, n. sp. (Fig. 20). 



Shining or subshining black robust species. Frontal triangle 

 subshining, not very distinctly bounded, ending acutely at about 



