GENUS OF SHORT-BEAKED GNATS. > 187 
A NEW GENUS OF SHORT-BEAKED GNATS FROM CEYLON. 
By N. AnnanpDALE, D.Sc., F.A.S.B., Indian Museum. 
(With one Plate and one Text-figure. ) 
FTXHROUGH the kind offices of Mr. E. E. Green I have been 
- entrusted with the examination of microscopic preparations 
of the larva, pupa, and imago of a peculiar little gnat taken by Major 
MacDougall, R.A.M.C., in a swamp at Diyatalawa in Ceylon (alt. 
ca. 4,300 feet). The specimens are mounted in Canada balsam, and 
unfortunately include only one imago, a male; but the structure of 
the fly and its immature stages is of such interest from a systematic 
point of view that I have ventured to describe the genus and species 
as new. In so doing I have, I may say, found it very much easier 
to give a description of the structure than if the specimen had been 
mounted dry in the ordinary way. 
It is a point worth considering whether more fixed and definite 
‘standards of entomological classification might not be reached if 
dried specimens were to be treated as of less account than those 
carefully mounted in some liquid medium, which would prevent their 
more delicate organs from becoming shrivelled out of all recognition. 
Colour would, in some cases, have to go, but, if the preservation be 
properly carried out, there is no reason why even the finest scales or 
hairs should be lost in specimens kept in spirit or Canada balsam. 
The main interest of the new genus here described as Ramcia lies 
in the fact that it affords a complete link between the “ Culicids ” 
of Theobald* and other recent authors, and the genera which these 
authors, intent on finding new pretexts for rending asunder what 
Nature has joined together, would separate as the family ‘‘ Core- 
thride.” In this particular instance the excuse for dividing 
families resides partly in the structure of the larva and partly in the 
short proboscis of the imago and the absence of scales on the head, 
body, legs, and veins of the wings. The larve of different “ Core- 
thride,”’ however, differ considerably more one from another than 
certain of them do from those of the “‘ Culicide”’ ; there is far more 
difference in structure, to take parallel instances, between the 
proboscis of Stomoxys or even Philematomyia and that of Musca 
than there is between that of Culex and that of Corethra, although 
even the most recent writers place Stomoxys and Philematomyia in 
the same family as Musca, while Phlebotomus, although it un- 
doubtedly belongs to a family (Psychodide) of which some species 
have densely scaled wings, has actually fewer scales on the wing 
dee Chaoborus. i) ees denies one ey of oe and 

* Mon. Culicide, iv., p. 1s (1907). 
+ As regards the synonymy of the genera allied to Corethr'a, see Brunetti, 
Rec. Ind. Mus., iv., p. 317 (1911). 
