108 Phoridae. 



palpi of the imago is no doubt of use in seeking the piitrid snails. 

 Keilin has interesting remarks about the movement of the larva of 

 domestica {Bergenstammi) which in creeping contracts almost only 

 the thoracic segments, and it fixes the anterior end not by the mouth 

 hooks, but by using the mouth as a sucker. The larvæ may be present 

 in the snails in rather great numbers, I have seen pupæ of notata in 

 H. hortensis and nemoralis in a number of up to 24 and in pomatia 

 in a number of 65. In the same shell there may be more than one 

 species of Phorid; Keilin remarks that if so one of the species always 

 predominates and, as it seems, prevents the other from developing, 

 so that the latter either quite perishes or only gives some few pupæ; 

 I can in so far confirm this, as I have met with notata together with 

 another species, the former by far predominating. The pupation 

 takes place in the shell, the puparium being glued to the inside of 

 the shell by the ventral surface; the puparia may be seen very crowded 

 in the circumvolutions of the shell, generally lying side by side, all 

 with the head-end in the same direction, though this is not invariably 

 so. The hibernation no doubt is passed in the pupal stage, my pupæ 

 were all taken in winter; the pupal stage seems to be of long duration; 

 as said before Leon Dufour found the pupa of maculata on ^^/s and 

 it developed in December. P. maculata and notata are spring species, 

 but seem to have only one brood in the year. According to Schmitz 

 domestica has several broods in the year, and the same is, as seen 

 above, also the case ^\'ith Bergenstammi] for immaculata Schmitz 

 records two broods in the year; Bohemanni has, I think, only one 

 brood, at all events in our country. — According to Keilin, the eggs 

 are deposited in the putrid snails not in heaps, but each egg singly, 

 direct on the inside of the shell. 



The genus Paraspiniphora is one of the genera created by Malloch 

 (The Glasgow Nat. 1904) as subgenera, when he divided the old 

 Genus Phora; the characters given for it were not very striking, 

 mainly consisting of the position of the bristles on middle tibiæ and 

 the four scutellar bristles, yet the genus seems to be quite valid, 

 and it is very interesting to see that it shows a biological character, 

 as it is known for most of its species that they live as larvæ in putrid, 

 shell-bearing snails, and there is some reason to think that this is the 

 case in all species. While the genus thus seems to be a good one, it 

 is, however, not quite homogenous; two of the species, Bohemanni 

 and erythronota (and perhaps also spinosissima) stand, as seen above 

 in the description of the genus, and as already noted by Schmitz 



