422 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



spider-like, dark reddish, with short black hair; coxae and trochanters red ; 

 first tarsal joint very short, second long ; claws slender, simple ; abdomen 

 shining red brown, except first segment, which is pale reddish ; segments 

 2 to 6 each with four transverse red spots, the midmost pair more basad 

 than the others ; sides and under surface of abdomen with black hair ; 

 claspers very small. 



The venation is in general like that of typical Hoj'momyia (Williston, 

 N. A. Dipt., 3rd Ed., p. 119, f. 4), except that the third vein does not bend 

 down so much apically, while the lower branch of the fifth bends down 

 more, entering the margin practically at right angles. There is, however, 

 a much more remarkable character; the third vein is continued straight 

 to the base of the fifth (it is reddish and very distinct), and the little cross- 

 vein to the firsts which is supposed to he the j-eal begiiming of the thirds is 

 totally absent.^ There is a little vein leaving the first just above the 

 origin of the third from the fifth, continuing a short distance obliquely 

 downward and basad, and failing to connect with anything. I have 

 examined the specimen over and over again with the lens and compound 

 microscope, and there is no doubt about the structures. This affords, I 

 think, a strong argument in favour of the view that the third vein is the 

 real media (as I have suggested in my studies of Nemestrinidee), the 

 so-called cross- vein being part of it. According to this view, the condition 

 found in Sciara, various Cecidomyiidse, etc., is genuinely primitive, and a 

 further investigation of these types may be expected to yield significant 

 results. 



NOTES ON THE GENUS SITAEIDA, WHITE. 



BY F. CREIGHTON WELLMAN, M. D., F. E. S., WASHINGTON, D. C. 



The Australian Meloid genus Sitarida was founded by White in 

 1846 on Sitarida Hopei, a new species described by himself. The type, 

 from New Holland, was a single 9 , which is still in the British Museum. 

 In 1863 Pascoe erected the genus Goetymes iox the reception of his newly- 

 described Goetymes Jlavicortiis, from Port Stephens, represented by a 

 single '^ specimen (type), also in the British Museum. 



*On one side only there is a thin colourless line, no thicker than the hairs on 

 the same part of the wing-, passing from the first vein to the third. It seems not 

 to be a rudiment of a vein. At the base there is a thin colourless thread passing 

 from the first to the third, touching the tip of the broken vein and ending a little 

 before the forking of the third and fifth. 

 November, igo8 



