﻿GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PIPUNCULIDAE. 



The Pipunculidae are a very distinct family of small ami ob- 

 scure flies, which in their habits, so far as these are known, all 

 agree in the fact that they are parasites of the Homopterous 

 Rhynchota. There are but few genera in this family, the greal 

 majority of the species being referred to the genus Pipiinciilus, 

 as are all the new species described in this paper. 



Verrall in his "British Flies" (Syrphidae, etc.) published in 

 1901 gives the known species of Pipunculus as nearly 50 Euro- 

 pean, about 8 North American, 1 Brazilian, 8 South African, 

 6 Central American, and 2 Chinese. He also mentions New 

 Guinea as a habitat. About the same time three new species 

 were described by Grimshaw from the Hawaiian Islands, mak- 

 ing a total of about 80 species for the genus. It is probable 

 that at the most not more than one in ten existing species has 

 been collected, for while the genus appears to be ubiquitous in 

 distribution, its members are too unattractive in ap]:)earance and 

 too fragile to have been much sought after in the tropics, and 

 further I am quite satisfied that many of the species will not be 

 easily obtained except by breeding them. The latter statement 

 applies particularly to some species that attack arboreal leaf- 

 hoppers. 



As a matter of fact it appears that extremely few of the many 

 known species have been bred, or at least of very few has the 

 fact been recorded. Of the 26 species found by us in Australia, 

 15 were bred from the leaf-hoppers themselves, and one from 

 collected pupae, the host being unknown to us. 



Inconspicuous as the flies are when seen in a collection, even 

 more so are they in life, for when on the wing most of them 

 appear even smaller than thev really are. Some of the Austra- 

 lian species under favorable circumstances occur in prodi9:ious 

 numbers. In the dry bed of a stream near Cairns at the end of 

 August there were small patches ot green grass at intervals, 

 when the surrounding country was dried up. On these patches 

 of grass large flocks of various small Tassid and Fulgorid leaf- 

 hoppers were feeding, and, in search of the former, countless 

 numbers of a species of Pipunc^ihis (P. bciirficiriis) were passing 



