XXVI.— NOTES ON ORIENTAL DIPTERA. 



IV.— ON SOME INDIAN SPEClEvS OF LIMNOPHORA AND 

 ANTHOMYIA, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF A NEW 

 SPECIES OF THE FORMER GENUS. 



By E. Brunetti. 



While passing through Lucknow in April last Dr. Annandale 

 found a small, well-marked, black-and-grey Anthomyid % very 

 common and troublesome in houses, having apparently supplanted 

 the common Musca domestica, although a species of Musca closel}^ 

 allied to M. domestica, but I think distinct, also occurred. 



On reference to descriptions I identified the Anthomyid, with 

 very little doubt, as the Anthomyia tonitrui of Wiedemann. It 

 would, however, now be placed in the more modern genus Limno- 

 phora. The species is evidently widely distributed in the East, 

 I found it common at Mhow, Central India, in the middle of 

 April, 1905 ; in this locality it used to rest, motionless, on the 

 flowerpots in an open-air conservatory, seldom on the plants 

 themselves. At Mussoorie, towards the end of June, 1905, I also 

 found it common in a churchyard garden lull of clover, in 

 company with the ordinary European dung fly Scatophaga sterco- 

 raria ly., a species of Chortophila, and a small Tachinid. 



I have no doubt that the A. lohalis of Thomson from China 

 is the same species, my specimens answering even better to this 

 description than to that of tonitrui ; and as Thomson himself says 

 it is closely alUed to Wiedemann's species, the identity of the two 

 is practically assured. 



I give a full description, which has been drawn up from a 

 considerable number of freshly captured and well preserved speci- 

 mens from various localities. 



Limnophora tonitrui Wied. (Plate xv ; fig. i, cf ; fig. 2, 9 .) 

 Anthomyia tonitrui, Wied. Aus. Zweifl., ii, p. 429. 

 ? Anthomyia lohalis, Thorns. Eugenie Reise, p. 551. 



' Head shining silvery grey^ vertex and antennae black, frons in 

 $ with a broad central black stripe, bearing a row of strong hairs 

 on its borders, bending strongly inwards ; mouth with stiff bris- 

 tles of different lengths; the posterior orbit of the eyes entirely 

 encircled by similar bristles ; eyes subcontiguous in the & , just 

 below the lengthened triangular vertex, separated only by the 

 frontal white ocular orbit; proboscis short, thick, black; palpi 

 not apparent. 



