216 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XXIV. — Neio Zealand Diptera : No. 1. 



By P. Marshall, M.A., B.Sc, F.G.S., Lecturer on Natural 

 Science, Lincoln College. 



{Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 5th June, 



1895.] 



Plates V.-VII. 



When one considei's the great geographical isolation of New 

 Zealand, and the discoveries that have been made of remark- 

 able types among the higher classes of animal life as repre- 

 sented here, it seems peculiar that such little attention has 

 been paid to the collection and classification of the lower 

 classes of animal life. i\lthough one cannot hope to paral- 

 lel the discoveries of the moa and SphenodoJi among the 

 lower and more humble representatives of the animal king- 

 dom, yet it is only to be expected that some of the lower 

 animals will show great and remarkable variation from those 

 types that have been collected and described in Europe and 

 America. Entomology seems to have suffered from neglect 

 even more than the other branches of zoology ; for, though 

 we have — thanks to the labours of Captain Broun and Mr. 

 Fereday — fairly complete descriptions and classifications of 

 the Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, none but spasmodic attempts 

 have been made to collect and describe any other of the large 

 orders of insects. The Diptera especially have been neglected, 

 probably ov/ing to the inconspicuous nature, and the usually 

 out-of-the-way habitats, of most of the species belonging to 

 this order. In 1881 Captain Hutton collected all the descrip- 

 tions that had been written of the insects captured in New 

 Zealand during the voyages of the " Astrolabe " and other 

 ships and expeditions in these waters. To these descriptions 

 he added a few of his own, and published the whole collection 

 as a catalogue of the Diptera of New Zealand, together with 

 similar catalogues of the Orthoptera and Hymenoptera. Since 

 that time a few dipterous insects have been described by dif- 

 ferent authors in the " Transactions of the New Zealand In- 

 stitute," but the total number now described does not amount 

 to more than a hundred and twenty-five species, of which 

 only twenty belong to the Nemocera. In 1892 Mr. Hudson, 

 of Wellington, published a " Manual of New Zealand Ento- 

 mology," in which figures and observations on the life-history 

 of several species were given. Amongst these were some new 

 species ; but no descriptions were given of them. Two years 

 ago I commenced to make a collection of our native species 

 of flies, intending at the time to send them to England to 



