104 D. W. COQUILLETT. 



at their posterior ends; lateral margins of thorax, extending on pleura in front 

 of each wing and at front end, where it expands in a spot above front coxae, also 

 a stripe above middle and hind cox» and spot in front of halteres yellow; sen- 

 telhim yellow, black at base. Abdomen black, hind margin of each segment 

 broadly yellow; halteres yellow; tibiae and femora, except sometimes basal 

 three-fourths of hind femora, yellow. Wings and antennae as in the male. 

 Length 3-4 mm. 



Southern California. Eighteen males and twenty-one females in 

 May. All of these with the exception of two of the females were 

 captured at the same time and place, and notwithstanding the differ- 

 ence in color, are evidently the opposite sexes of the same species. 



Phthiria htiniilis O. S. 



Osten Sacken described the male ; two females captured at the 

 same time and place as a male have the following parts dull yellow : 

 upper half of front (except the ocellar triangle) occipital orbits nar- 

 rowly, but widening below, narrow lateral margin of thorax, except 

 above wings, spot above front coxa and another in front of halteres, 

 scutellum except the sides, also a narrow hind border to each seg- 

 ment of the abdomen. 



EPACMUS O. S. 



Epacmus concinnus Coq., pellucidus Coq., transitiis Coq. and fu- 

 7nosus Coq. belong to the genus Aphcebantus. In referring thetn to 

 Epacmus I was misled by Osten Sacken's tables, where the absence 

 of pulvilli is given as the distinguishing feature, — a very unreliable 

 character, causing the separation into different genera of species 

 which are very closely related. The structure of the face is a more 

 satisfactory character — concave and projecting below in Epacmus, 

 convex and retreating below in Aphcebantus. Bigot's Epacnms ru- 

 folimbatus (Ann. Soc. Ent. France, Ixi, 359), in which the proboscis 

 equals the thorax and abdomen in length, may belong to Apluebantus. 

 If this surmise is correct, we then have only two species of Epacmus 

 in North America, — E. modestas Loew and the following: 



EpaoinilS iiebrittis n. sp. % 9- — Black, the oral margin, tibiae and base 

 of tarsi reddish, knob of halteres dark brown. Pile of head, thorax and abdo- 

 men yellow or white, bristles of thorax, scutellum and legs reddish ; scales of 

 front and face quite dense, whitish, those of thorax brown and whitish, the 

 brown forming four stripes: scutellum shining, the hind edgeemarginate, nearly 

 the entire surface covered with rather long reddish bristles and yellowish scales, 

 the hind edge bare, except in the middle and at the extreme base; scales of ab- 

 domen brown, those at apex of first segment and base of second white; eyes of 



