318 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.43. 



hind margin, leaving a shining black triangle on each side of median 

 line; fourth segment with posterior margin shining black, the rest 

 thickly golden-brassy pollinose extending on underside; carina and 

 venter on each side ashy. Legs black. Wings faintly yellowish on 

 broad costal portion, the color following the veins. Tegulse white, 

 with some yellowish shading on borders. 

 Type.— Cat. No. 15156 U.S.N .M. 



SPATHIMYIA, new genus. 



The description of this remarkable genus is made from a single 

 female specimen. Eyes thinly hairy. Front about equal to width 

 of one eye, face slightly and evenly widened from front. Parafacials 

 much narrowed, bare. Cheeks a little over one-fifth eye-height, 

 hardly one-fourth. Oral margin moderately prominent, vibrissse 

 about on level with median part of same. Facialia with four or five 

 bristles not reaching lowest frontal bristles, which descend to insertion 

 of arista. Second antennal joint of ordinary length, the third about 

 three times as long as second or slightly more. Arista rather long, 

 thickened on nearly basal one-third, basal joints short. Two outer 

 proclinate anterior orbital bristles, and two inner reclinate posterior 

 ones in line with front als. Ocellar bristles present, slender but 

 moderately long. Palpi nearly as long as the fleshy proboscis beyond 

 geniculation, widened apically. 



Three sternopleural and three postsutural bristles. Scutellum with 

 two lateral pairs of moderately long curved bristles, a discal pair of 

 weak ones, and an apical nondecussate pair of long straight ones 

 reaching to base of anal abdominal segment. Abdomen with erect 

 marginal and discal macrochsetse, the first segment Avith a median 

 margiaal pair, the other segments with discal as well as marginal, the 

 median marginal pair of third segment much stronger than the mar- 

 ginal bristles on each side of them, the anal segment with a marginal 

 row of equal bristles. Piercer of extraordinary development, about 

 equal to the abdomen in length, gently curved, narrow, the edges 

 strongly turned up on basal portion forming a deeply grooved dorsal 

 aspect, in which lies the chitinized larvipositor extending fully two- 

 fifths the length of the piercer. Ventral carina distinct but not 

 especially salient, entirely devoid of the usual strong spinulse of the 

 CompsHuriQe flies and furnished only with weak bristly hairs. Apical 

 cell narrowly open a little before wing tip, the bend of fourth vein 

 normal and without stump or wrinkle, hind cross vein sinuate and 

 nearer to bend of fourth than to small cross vein. Middle and hind 

 tibiae with three strong divergent bristles on middle, and three 

 shorter apical ones. 



Reproductive habit, subcutaneous larviposition, evidently in cater- 

 pillars whose skin is furnished with long hairs or spines. The absence 



