NO. 3 NEOTROPICAL FLIES, TABANIDAE — FAIRCHILD 3 



labels, usually red for primary types, green for cotypes, and yellow 

 for paratypes. 



In its present state, the arrangement and labeling are largely the 

 work of E. E. Austen, the late curator, and H. Oldroyd, the present 

 curator. Austen is largely responsible for verifying Walker's types, 

 which, until his time, were not marked as such. The Bigot collection, 

 containing Macquart and Bigot types, was remounted on double 

 mounts after receipt by the British Museum. In most cases only one 

 specimen of a series bore a label — those of Macquart which Bigot had 

 pasted onto larger labels, or his own folded and often much defaced 

 labels. In repinning this material great care seems to have been taken 

 to put the labels back on the same specimens, though in one or two 

 cases there appears to have been an exchange of labels. Mr. Oldroyd 

 has done the great service of marking all the types with distinctively 

 colored labels, a procedure that greatly facilitated their recognition. 



At Paris, the collections are housed in large glass-topped cardboard 

 boxes. There has been no effort to rearrange the Tabanidae, and the 

 collection is really a series of separate collections. Although most of 

 the Tabanidae are together, the Macquart collection is in its own series 

 of boxes, not mixed with subsequent additions. Surcouf's material 

 is also separate. This policy seems the only sound one under the pre- 

 vailing conditions, as M. Seguy is in charge of several other orders 

 besides Diptera, and has but one assistant. The Meigen collection of 

 Diptera, as well as several other largely European collections, is thus 

 preserved. For the most part, the Macquart types are not labeled as 

 such and bear only their original labels, so that reference to the orig- 

 inal descriptions is often necessary. The box labels under which the 

 species stand are, I believe, a later addition, and are not very helpful 

 or consistent. Since most of the specimens are types or easily recog- 

 nized species, determination as to which specimen is a type is usually 

 not difficult. The Macquart collection is also divided geographically, 

 the Neotropical, Nearctic, etc., species placed together. Owing to lack 

 of realization that Mexican material may have been considered Nearc- 

 tic, I quite likely missed seeing the types of several of Macquart's 

 species, as I lacked time to go through other than the Neotropical 

 boxes. 



Most of Walker's Neotropical species were described in the "List 

 of the Specimens of Dipterous Insects in the Collection of the British 

 Museum," which is here abbreviated to "List" with volume, page, and 

 year. His other publications are more fully cited. Macquart's species 

 appeared mostly in a series of articles entitled "Dipteres Exotiques 

 Nouveaux ou Peu Connus," here abbreviated to "Dipt. Exot." This 



