BV VERA IRWIX SMITH. 507 



to special organs, and no att(-'mi)t has been made to give a general and complete 

 account oi' the larval morphology and the metamorphosis of any of the Stratio- 

 myiidae. Portions of the nervous system have been described, in this way, by 

 Kunckel d'Herculais (1879), Viallanes (1882, 1885), and Henneguy and Binet 

 (18'J-J); the integument, by Leydig (1860), Viallanes (1882), and Plotnikow 

 (1904) ; the malpighiau vessels, by Vaney (1900) ; the pharynx, by Vaney (1902) 

 and Jusbaschjauz (1910), and the head and mouth parts, by Becker (1910) . 

 The most important work on the development is that of Jusbaschjanz (1910), 

 who deals in great histological detail with the development of the imaginal discs, 

 etc. ; but he gives no account of the general metamorphosis . He explains that 

 such an account would require a much richer material than he had at his disposal 

 at the time, and that he had not succeeded in getting many pupal stages, the 

 few pupae he obtained being all in the later phases of development. He pro- 

 poses to deal more completely, in a later work, with the phenomena of meta- 

 morphosis and development; but, if the promised work has appeared, it has not 

 been accessible to me, and I have found no record of it in the catalogues. I 

 have not seen Swammerdam's book (1737), but, according to Jusbaschjanz, he 

 describes the metamorphosis of Stratiomi/s chamaeleon with an accuracy remark- 

 able in such an early work. Good descriptions of the external features of larvae 

 exist in various papers dealing with individual species; but the most important 

 works, from a systematic point of view, are those of Brauer (1883), and Lund- 

 beck (1907) . Although Brauer deals with dipterous larvae in general, his work 

 is very comprehensive in character. After discussing the value of larval charac- 

 ters in classification, and the metamorphosis of the different groups, he gives a 

 section on the characters of the sub-orders and families, followed, in the case of the 

 Stratiomi/iidae. by a systematic table (p. 23) of the larval characters of the dif- 

 ferent genera. Lundbeck, in his valuable work on Danish Diptera, supplies a 

 description of the larvae under the heading of each genus of the Stratiomyiidae,. 

 and finishes with a svTioptic table (p. 74) of the larvae of all Danish genera. 



Little or nothing is known of the life-histories, or even of the larvae, of the 

 Australian Stratiomt/iidae. The only published record of the early stages of any 

 of this group, which I have been able to find, is that of Froggatt (1896), which 

 relates to Ephippiuni alhitarsifi (?) Bigot. 



Observations on thh life-history of Metoponia rubrioeps Macq. 



For a few weeks in the spring, and again in the autumn, this species makes 

 its appearance, in fairly considerable numbers, over grassy areas in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Sydney. Well cultivated lawns seem to be specially favoured 

 haunts, and the flies, which are small, with feeble powers of flight, are usually 

 found on, or about, the grass. They seldom rise far above the gi-ound, though 

 in the autumn of this year, one female specimen was captured on a window of 

 the third floor of the Australian Museum. Like most Stratiorayids, they are sluggish 

 in their habits, and remain for long periods at rest on the grass blades, where 

 they are easily caught by inverting a glass tube over them. Mr. G. H. Hardy 

 informs me that he has taken specimens from the middle of March to the end 

 of April, and in the early part of November, but has never seen them at other 

 times of the year. 



The present investigation into the life-history was begun in May, 1919, when 

 I received from Mr. Hardy a specimen tube containing a cluster of eggs on a 

 grass blade, with the information that they were deposited by Metoponia rubri- 



