310 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XXVI. — Neiv Zealand Di^Jtera : No. 3. — Simulidae. 

 By P. Marshall, M.A. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 6th November, 



1895.] 



Plate XIV. 



Family SIMULID^. 



This is quite a small family of flies, but has an extremely 

 wide geographical distribution, being found in nearly all tem- 

 perate countries north and south of the equator. The popular 

 name for the insects belonging to this family is "sandflies" 

 or " black-flies," and wherever they occur they are regarded 

 as one of the worst insect-pests, on account of the great local 

 irritation produced by the bite of the female. Three insects 

 are recorded by Walker common in England, while many 

 other species have been described from the European Con- 

 tinent and North America. Mr. Skuse has described two 

 species in his Australian Diptera, but he considers them 

 rather uncommon insects, and says that the majority of the 

 insects known by the name of " sandfly " m Australia belong 

 to the genus Ceratopogon of the family GhironomidcB. In New 

 Zealand, so far as I am aware, no insects belonging to the 

 ChironomidcB molest the peace of man or any other animals. 

 The " sandfly " that is so common throughout the colony is a 

 species belonging to the Slmulidce. The family contains but a 

 single genus, but its characters are so peculiar and so con- 

 stant that there can be no doubt that this genus is rightly 

 excluded from all the larger families. It is undoubtedly more 

 closely related to the BihionidcB tlian to any of the other 

 families. A New Zealand species was described by Schiner in 

 1868 under the name of Simulia australiensis . Though the 

 description is somewhat meagre, I have no hesitation in 

 assigning all the species that I have collected from three 

 different localities to this species. I have no doubt that 

 future research will reveal the presence of other species, but, 

 as all my specimens show no variation except in size, I think 

 they all belong to this species, which must have a very wide 

 range in the colony. 



Mr. Hudson, in his "Handbook of New Zealand Ento- 

 mology," gives figures illustrating the three stages in the 

 metamorphosis of this insect, and adds some valuable notes 

 on its habits. As in other species, the larvae are aquatic. 

 They are rather broad maggots, with suckers at both extremi- 

 ties of the body, by means of which they crawl about like a 

 leech or a grameter caterpillar on the plants growing in the 



