PSYCHE 



VOL. XX. APRIL, 1913. No. 2 



A SYNOPSIS OF THE SAPROMYZIDAE. 1 



By A. L. Melander, 

 Pullman, Washington. 



In the Genera Insectorum, Fascicle 68 (1908), Friedrich Hendel 

 has given an excellent review of the group Lauxaniinse, generally 

 known to American entomologists as the Sapromyzidse. As this 

 work has introduced several changes in nomenclature differing 

 from the list of species as given in Aldrich's Catalogue, and as there 

 has appeard no complete review of the North American species, 

 the following synopsis is offered. It may seem presumptuous to 

 publish this review, based as it is mainly on descriptions, for I 

 have in all but eighty species of the family in my collection for 

 reference, but the value of working tables in assisting future stu- 

 dents is obvious enough to excuse its appearance in print. 



Naturally, the attempt to visualize a species from a brief de- 

 scription alone does not assure the most satisfactory results, so that 

 the following tables give largely an artificial classification. Such 

 attempts at reconstructing a mind-picture of the species have 

 proved especially unsatisfactory in the big group Lauxania, where 

 the assignment of the species to Minettia or to Sapromyzah&s some- 

 times been merely a guess. 



I am indebted to my colleague and neighbor, Professor J. M. 

 Aldrich, for the inspiration that prompted this review and for his 

 material assistance in sharing his library and collection during 

 its progress. His collection has extended the distribution of 

 many species, and in the following pages the localities of his species 

 are added with the designation "Aldrich." Those localities 

 marked with the asterisk (*) are represented in my collection. 



The North American species of Sapromyza have been twice 

 tabulated. In 1892 Mr. C. H. Tyler Townsend published a 

 "Preliminary Grouping of Sapromyza" in the Canadian Entomolo- 

 gist, pages 301 to 304. The next year appeared "El JGenero Sapro- 



1 Contribution from the Zoological Laboratory of the State College of Washington. 



