490 DIPTERA CHAP. 



few species known, and all of them are rare ; ^ in Britain we 

 have but two {Ofjcodes gihhosus, Aerocera glohidus). The genus 

 Ptei'odontia, found in North America and Australia, an inflated 

 Idadder-like form with a minute head, is 

 amongst the most extraordinary of all the 

 forms of Diptera. Tlie haluts are very 

 peculiar, the larvae, so far as known, all 

 living as parasites within the Itodies of 

 spiders or in their egg-hags. It appears, 

 however, that the flies do not oviposit in 

 \ appropriate places, l)ut place their eggs on 



YiG.2M.-~Megcdyimsfjra- stems of plants, and the young larvae have 

 ^n't- ^*;.^^T'!"'^''l•| to find their way to the spiders. Brauer has 



Chill. (Alter Westwood.) •' ^ 



described the larva of the European Asfo- 

 mclla lindeni," which lives in the body of a spider, Cteniza 

 arlana ; it is amphipneustic and maggot-like, the head Ijeing 

 extremely small. The larva leaves the body of the spider for 

 pupation ; the pupa is much arched, and the head is destitute of 

 the peculiar armature of the Boml)yliidae, but has a serrate ridge 

 on the thorax. Emerton found the larvae of an Aerocera in the 

 webs of a common North American spider, Amnurohius sylrestris, 

 they having eaten, it was supposed, the makers of the cobwebs. 



Fam. 22. Lcnchopteridae. — Small, slender flies, u-ith 2^ointed 

 ivings, short, porrect antennae, laith a simple, circular third joint, 

 bearing a hristlc ; emj^odmm very small, 2yulvilli ahsent. — Only one 

 genus of these little flies is known, but it is apparently widely 

 distributed, and its members are common Insects. They have 

 the appearance of Acalyptrate Muscidae, and the nervuration of 

 the wing is somewhat similar, the nervures being simple and 

 parallel, and the minute cross -nervures placed near the base. 

 The systematic position is somewhat doubtful, and the meta- 

 morphoses are but incompletely known, very little having been 

 added to what was discovered by Sir John Lubbock in 1862.^ 

 The larva lives on the earth under vegetable matter ; it is very 

 transparent, amphipneustic, with a Y)eculiar head, and with fringes 

 on the margins. This larva changes to a semi-pupa or apterous 

 maggot-like form, within the lar^'al skin ; tlie true pupa was 



^ For figures, etc., cf. Westwood, Tr. cnt. Soc. London, 1876, \i. 507, pis. v. vi. 



2 Ferh. Ges. TFien, xix. 1869, p. 737, pi. xiii. 



3 Tr. ent. Soc. London (3) i. 1862, p. 338, pi. xi. 



