266 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Oct., '03 



Those who devote themselves wholly to one order and have 

 paid no attention to the diptera (I have the greatest admira- 

 tion for these specialists, I myself, being only a smatterer, 

 knowing a very little about many things, but nothing thor- 

 oughly,) may not recognize these flies by name, but I am sure 

 they have seen and noticed them while collecting in their own 

 line. They are most of them, of plain, subdued, quiet hues, 

 chiefly blackish or grayish, and never very large, but the odd 

 little round globular head, big eyes and long beaklike probos- 

 cis, together with the prominent, round shouldered thorax, 

 slim body and long legs, make them quaintly noticeable. Then 

 they have ways of their own which are very characteristic and 

 peculiar. Predaceous, capturers, killers and eaters of other 

 insects, using their stiletto-like beaks for piercing the tender 

 bodies of their victims, they are, however, many of them 

 flower lovers and sippers of honeyed sweets. 



Here in Franconia, N. H. , one of the earliest and most abund- 

 ant species is Rhamphomyia pnlla, a large, shining black fly, its 

 black slender legs varied with reddish brown. This year in 

 late May and early June, they were very numerous, particu- 

 larly the males. I could not sw^eep my net on the herbage at 

 the edge of brook or river without finding them, four, some- 

 times a half dozen of this species inside it. They crawled 

 upon the gravelly bank of the streams, rested on the wet 

 stones, and often came into our rooms and upon the windows. 

 Windows are great hunting grounds for the collection of Em- 

 pids, in this northern region at least. I have seen the panes 

 of our windows here in earliest summer so thickly covered by 

 the tiny creatures that one could scarcely see the glass. I 

 have seen them almost as abundant on the windows of the 

 Summit House on Mt. Washington in July. 



Two or three years ago some tiny flies of reddish yellow 

 came to my bedroom window up there in swarms and I col- 

 lected many of them. The next year they appeared here in 

 Franconia, also on windows. Mr. Coquillett pronounced them 

 a new species, and has recently described it as Anthalia JJava. 

 This summer while watching a swarm of them upon my win- 

 dow, I noticed a few blackish ones among them of the same 



