1902.] 205 



mode of bursting the shell during the escape of the imago. The 

 attentive study of Dufour's description of the metamorphosis of 

 Phora (Mem., &c, de Lille, &c, 1841, pp. 415-424, with a plate) and 

 of the figures he gives, leads me to the same conclusion (compare es- 

 pecially the fig. 6, the pupa and the punctate line, indicating its mode 

 of splitting). 



Finally, Phora, as a perfect insect, differs from Musca (the pre- 

 vailing type among the Cyclorrhapha) in its general appearance, in 

 the structure of all the particular organs, and in its motions : its 

 running is an intermittent gliding ; its different modes of flying in- 

 clude a peculiar up and down motion, with the legs stretched out, and 

 kept more or less together, an action which I have also observed in 

 some Orthorrhapha, as Hybotidce and Uhyphidas, but never in a Muscid. 



Thus excluded from the Cyclorrhapha, Phora must fiud its place 

 among Orthorrhapha. 



The presence of numerous macrocbaetsB, of pulvilli, and of a di- 

 choptic head in both sexes, prevents Phora from being located in any 

 of my super-families of the Orthorrhapha, excepting that which I 

 have called Eneryopoda (and which includes the Asilidce, the Empidce 

 and Lonchoptera), and it is at the end of this superfamily that I 

 placed Phora. But this place is a merely mnemonic arrangement, 

 based upon the presence of the characters just enumerated, which 

 exclude Phora from the other superfamilies and are present in the 

 Eneryopoda. A real affinity with Phora does not exist anywhere. 

 (For details, compare my paper, " Preliminary Notice of a subdivision 

 of the Orthorrhapha Brachycera ;" Berl. Ent. Z., 1S9G, pp. 365-373). 



Heidelberg : August, 1902. 



OGCODES OIBBOSUS, A RARE DIPTERON STORED BY CRABRO 



INTERRUPTUS. 



BY THE 11EV. H. S. OOllHAM, P.Z.S. 



On July 21st, 1900, at Emery Down, New Forest, I discovered a 

 thistle {Cnicus palustris) with a hole in it about three feet from the 

 ground, round which several spiders seemed watching, and on investi- 

 gation 1 found the hollow stem to which the hole led to be filled for 

 about eight inches with numbers of the rare fly Oy codes yibbosus. 

 There were perhaps twenty-five or thirty flies, and then a wad of frass 

 and debris, and then another segment, and a wad ; and in some a 

 Hymenopterous larva engaged iu devouring the stored-up flies. 



The spider (of which I do not at present know the name) bore a 

 remarkable likeness to the flies, and at first 1 rather naturally felt 



