Empididae. 81 



ring, terminating in a pair of shorter or longer, styliform lamellæ; 

 often there is also a small, styliform or knob-like process issuing from 

 the ventral side of the eighth segment. In some cases the three last 

 abdominal segments are suddenly narrowed. The legs are more or 

 less long and slender; sometimes the femora may be thickened, and 

 not rarely the males have the front or hind metatarsi, or both pairs 

 more or less thickened. The legs have the ordinary short pubescence, 

 and besides longer hairs and bristles, variously arranged in the varioiis 

 species and thus giving specific characters. Sometimes (especially in the 

 subgenus Pterempis) the females have all the legs, or only the posterior, 

 with the femora and tibiæ and sometimes also the metatarsi more or 

 less feathered v^ith scaly hairs, the arrangement of which likewise af- 

 fords specific characters. The tibiæ have apical or subapical spurs in 

 varying numbers, they are often very small and inconspicuous. There 

 are two claws, two well developed pulvilli, and a small, median em- 

 podium with hairs. The wings may in single cases be broad, especially 

 in the female; sometimes they are relatively long. They are hyaline 

 or more or less darkened, sometimes milky in the male, The media- 

 stinal vein is abbreviated, not reaching the margin; the cubital vein 

 is forked and there are thus two cubital cells; from the discai cell 

 three veins issue, the lowermost is the upper branch of the postical 

 vein which closes the discai cell below, there are thus four posterior 

 cells; the upper branch of the discai vein is sometimes abbreviated; 

 the anal vein either reaches the margin or is abbreviated; the second 

 branch of the postical vein is recurrent towards the base and almost 

 parallel with the wing-margin, and the anal cell is much shorter than 

 the second basal cell. Stigma present, often very weak. Alula is 

 small, sometimes almost not developed, fringed at the margin; axillary 

 lobe small or large, the angle generally deep and acute, but some- 

 times rectangular or obtuse, and the angle between alula and squa- 

 mula alaris foUows the axillary angle in shape; alar squamula gener- 

 ally fringed at the margin, rarely bare. 



Not much is known about the developmental stages of the species 

 of Empis. Macquart mentions (Suit, å Buffon I, 326, 1834) the pupa 

 of E. opaca. Beling describes larvæ and pupæ of E. trigramma (Arch. 

 fiir Naturgesch. Jahrg. XLI, 39—40, 1875) and of E. tessellata, decora, 

 grisea {nodosa) and aestiva (ibid. XLVIII, 205—11, 1882). Kieffer 

 (111. Zeitschr. fiir Entom. V, 1900, 131) describes larva and pupa of 

 E. meridionalis. I have myself examined the larva of E. tessellata, 

 but only one, bad specimen. The larvæ are cylindrical, whitish or 

 yellowish; the body consists in all of twelve segments (Beling, Brauer), and 

 it is pointed towards the head. The last segment is somewhat elongately 



6 



