202 Phoridae. 



the anterior pair being reduced to the small hairs mentioned above, 

 always representing the anterior pair when only two bristles are 

 present, and in a few cases the anterior pair in the male may vary 

 in the same species, being sometimes mere hairs, sometimes more 

 developed. Mesopleiira eitlier bare or bristly, when bristly the bristles 

 may all be small and of .uniform or nearly uniform size, or among 

 the bristles there may be one or a couple larger; these larger bristles 

 may be stronger or weaker and thus more or less conspicuous. Ab- 

 domen in the male with the segments more or less equal in length or 

 sometimes the sixth, or the second and sixth somewhat elongated. 

 The hypopygium is smaller or larger; it may be somewhat unsym- 

 metrical with the side prolongations unequal, but most often it is 

 symmetricai; it may otherwise vary somewhat in shape, being higher 

 than long or on the contrary longer than high and somewhat cylin- 

 drical, and the side prolongations may be drawn a little out below 

 in various ways; it is generally more or less hairy on the sides down- 

 wards, and it is often provided with weaker or stronger bristles in 

 various arrangement and number. The ventral plate may vary from 

 quite small to a large, flap-like plate, it is in more rare cases of a special 

 shape, narrow and spatula-shaped, forked or unsymmetrical. The anal 

 tube varies from quite small to a considerable size ; it is as a rule com- 

 pressed, highest about the middle, slanting towards base and apex, 

 rarely it is depressed; at the apex there is a pair of larger or smaller, 

 upwards curved hairs, very rarely wanting. In the female abdomen 

 consists of six normally developed segments with normal tergites, 

 the following segments are narrow and more or less retracted tele- 

 scopically, they consist of a small seventh and eighth segment and 

 fmally at the end a small segment and apically a pair of small lamellæ, 

 generally or always directed downwards, together these formations 

 represent the ninth and tenth segments; the connecting membrane 

 between the sixth and seventh and between the seventh and eighth 

 segments is long so that these segments are able to be stretched out 

 to a high degree; the tergites of the segments after the sixth are very 

 small, they may be of difTerent shape and sometimes longitudinally 

 divided; these last segments after the sixth, in contradistinction to 

 the anterior segments, also have chitinized ventral piates, but they 

 are small and may likewise be of various shape and often divided; 

 only in one species (Oldenbergi Schmitz) there is a chitinized ventral 

 plate on the sixth segment. The tergite of the sixth segment in the 

 female seems always to have a more or less pronounced emargination 



