[Berliner Entomolog. :Zeitsclir.f5d. XLT, Jnhrg. 1896. Heft IV.] 365 



Prcliniinary notice of a subdivision 

 of the Suborder 



Orthorrhapha Brachycera (Dipt.) 



on chaetotactic principles, 



by 

 C. R. Osten Sachen. 



In adopting three (instead of two), Subordcrs of Diptera,^ I 

 made at the same time an attempt at a subdivision of these Sub- 

 orders into what I then called Divisions, bat wliich, since the 

 appearance of J. H. Comstock's „Manual" etc. (1895), I prefer 

 with him to call Superfamilies. I pointed out characters by means 

 of which such Superfamilies could bc defined, characters that, 

 heretofore, had been entirely overlooked or neglected. The impor- 

 tance of the structure of the head of the male, for instance, which 

 I called holoptic, had never been sufficiently appreciated, in so far 

 even that there was no special term for it. The total absence 

 of this character in niy Superfamily Nemocera vera, and the pre- 

 sence of several other characters, borrowed from different parts of 

 the body, as well as from the early stages of these insects, justify 

 the Separation of this Superfamily from a provisional division 

 which I called Nemocera anomcda. At the same time, there is no 

 doubt that both Superfamilies belong to the same Suborder, 

 Orthorrhapha Nemocera. 



Within the Suborder Orthorrhapha. Brachycera, for the families 

 Stratiomyidae, Tabanidae, Acanthomeridae and Leptidae (inclu- 

 ding JCylophagidae), I formcd the Superfamily Eremochaeta (the 



') In my paper: On the characters of the three Divisions 

 of Diptera, in the Berl, Ent. Zeit. 1892. A preliminary notice of 

 this paper: „Suggestions etc." appeared in tlie Entom. M. Mag. 1891, 

 p. 35, and an „Explanatory notice etc." in the same periodical, 1893, 

 p. 149. 



