956 Charles Paul Alexander 



Toxorhina muliebris (O. S.) 



1865 Toxorrhina muliebris 0. S. Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila., p. 233. 



Toxorhina muliebris is the commonest species of the genus in the 

 United States, with a rather wide range thruout the Northeastern States. 

 The adult flies suck nectar from various flowers, such as the following: 

 Rhamnaceae, Ceanothus americanus Linn. (Banks); Ericaceae, Clethra 

 alnifolia Linn. (McAtee); Apocynaceae, Apocynum medium Greene 

 (McAtee); Compositae, Solidago canadensis Linn. (Knab). 



The immature stages are unknown, but from Mrs. Tothill's tent-trap 

 observations they are presumably spent in mud, since adult flies were 

 found in her traps set over wet, sedgy spots near Ithaca, New York. It 

 may be, however, that the insects live in fragments of decaying wood 

 which might be buried in this mud, since such a habitat conforms more 

 closely to that of Elephantomyia, which is apparently closely related to 

 Toxorhina. 



Eriopterine No. 1 



A very curious larva, which has not been reared, has been found in 

 various places near Ithaca during the past few years. It is a small, pale 

 larva, very delicate and almost diaphanous in appearance, at the posterior 

 end with five flattened black plates with serrated margins, and with its 

 thoracic segments capable of considerable lateral extension. The larva 

 is undoubtedly 'an eriopterine, but it introduces a type of spiracular 

 disk that has not been found elsewhere in the tribe. The writer finds 

 it difl[icult to believe that this curious larva can belong to any of the 

 eriopterine genera discussed in this paper, and yet there are very few 

 possibilities remaining; and one of these (Cryptolabis) does not occur 

 in the habitat frequented by this larva. The genus Atarba, whose 

 immature stages are still wholly unknown, is a possibility. Empeda, which 

 the writer considers to be a subgenus of Erioptera, has not been 

 reared and must also be considered as a possibility. If this is the larva 

 of Empeda, the group at once assumes full generic rank as given it by 

 Osten Sacken, but occupying an isolated position and no closer to Gono- 

 myia than to Erioptera. The larvae of this species were found commonly 

 on Bool's hillside, at Ithaca, where they occurred in association with 

 numerous other crane-fly larvae discussed elsewhere (page 781). The 



