[Berliner- Entoraologische Zeitschrift. Bd. XXVI. 1882. Heft I. 



Diptera from the Philippine Islands 



brought home by Dr. Carl Semper, 



and described by 



C R. Osten Sacken. 



Preface. 



Up to the present time only a few diptera from the Philippine 

 Islands have been described. In Wiedemann I find but a single species 

 from that region; Macquart and Walker (in his List of the Diptera of 

 the British Museum) have a few more ; Schiner and Thomson published 

 those brought home by the naturalists of the ,,Novara'' and the „Eugenia'*. 

 In all, I find fifty two described species, the list of which will be 

 given below. 



The collection formed by Dr. Carl Semper, now Professor in 

 Wiirzburg, during his residence in the Philippines (1859 — 64) contains 

 about 250 species, and enables us for the first time to form some idea 

 of the character of the fauna. This collection was entrusted in 1865 

 to the able hands of my friend Professor Bellardi in Turin, and it is 

 very much to be regretted that other occupations prevented him from 

 accomplishing his purpose to describe it. In November 1880 it came 

 into my possession. — While still in the hands of Prof. Bellardi, the 

 collection was sent by him to Mr. Walker in London for the purpose of 

 comparing the specimens with those in the British Museum, Mr. Walker 

 mentions this circumstance (J. Proc. Lin. Soc. IX, p. 1) and introduces 

 the species identified by him in his „Synopsis of the Diptera of the Eastern 

 Archipelago, discovered by Mr. Wallace" (1. c. p. 7 and the following, 

 fourth column, Philippines). The species thus identified however were 

 few in number, and the identifications, even of Mr. Walker's own species, 

 were far from trustworthy. I will discuss them in the proper places. 



In preparing the present work, I have followed the same rules as 

 those which I explained in the Preface to my „Enumeration of theN^ ^^:] ^^ 

 Diptera of the Malay Archipelago etc." (Annali del Museo Civico Sc. Natur. ^ 



di Genova, Vol. XVI). I consider the description of a limited faunal 

 collection from a little-known region, as being merely preliminary work, y^ J 



preparing materials for systematic monographs. The final descriptions 

 of species must be comparative ones, based upon the knowledge of all 

 or nearly all the species of a given region. For this reason, I confined 

 myself to describing the most striking forms only, and did not deem 



6* 



