14 THE EARLY STAGES OF TABANID^ 



free-living state. The text-book of medical entomology by Patton 

 and Cragg (1913), who worked in Madras, again gives descriptions 

 of egg and larval stages of various Indian tabanids, with information 

 on habits, methods of rearing, etc., giving also for the first time a 

 more complete idea of work previously done. The organ discovered 

 by Graber (1878) is illustrated and discussed by these authors; 

 Paoli's work on the same subject, however, seems to have remained 

 unknown to them. At about the same time (1914) Lutz in Rio de 

 Janeiro published the first meager observations on early stages of 

 tabanids in Brazil, having found larvae of Tahanus {Neotahanns) 

 ochrophilus and triangulum, and of one undetermined species. The 

 studies of Neave in the following year, 1915, furnish abundant infor- 

 mation on early stages of African tabanids, and new studies on South 

 American tabanid larvae were published by Bodkin and Cleare in 

 1916. Some new species of egg parasites have also been described in 

 recent years by Crawford from King's material, and by Girault (1916) 

 from Tahanus eggs from Dallas, Texas. 



The various text-books on medical entomology and related subjects 

 which have appeared recently, besides those quoted by Bainb ridge 

 and Fletcher and by Patton and Cragg, those published by Goldi 

 (1913), Herms (1915), W. A. Riley and Johannsen (1915), and 

 Griinberg (1907), also Brumpt's Precis de parasitologic (1910), con- 

 tain a good deal of information on tabanid early stages, including also 

 quotations from previous literature. 



While most of the recent work has been done by British and Amer- 

 ican authors, new and accurate studies on the oviposition of Tahanus 

 quatuornotatus have been made by Lecaillon (1911), and another 

 paper by Picard and le Blanc (1913) reports the early stages of another 

 species. In the latter year there also appeared a paper by del 

 Guercio on the tabanids of the rice fields of Bologna, which, however, 

 contains little of scientific value. 



The complaint made by some writers of the meagerness of our 

 knowledge of the life history of this group, notably by Goldi, will 

 probably soon be unfounded, if our knowledge progresses as rapidly 

 as it has in the last few years. 



South America, which is extremely rich in interesting tabanids, 

 and Australia, where until now apparently no work has been done, 



