RESULTS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS’ COLLECTING IN 
THE TACHINIDA, WITH NOTES ON 
SOME COMMON SPECIES. 
By J. M. ALpricH, 
Assistant in Cereal and Forage Insect Investigations, Bureau of Entomology. 
A recent rather careful inventory of my collection in this 
family was made the basis of further studies. which seemed of 
general interest and are presented in this paper. 
First a few personal words about my collecting. 
I began to collect insects in 1888. In my first two seasons 
I collected everything without discrimination; but in the spring 
of 1890 I definitely selected the Diptera as my specialty and 
began a private collection in them, still for many years continu- 
ing to make a general collection for my institution. In the fall 
of 1890 my attention was directed especially to the Tachinidze 
through meeting in Washington Mr. C. H. T. Townsend, who 
was already specializing in them. For several years I sent him 
material. The appearance of Coquillett’s Revision of the 
Tachinide in 1897 gave a new impetus to my collecting in the 
family; within a few years he had named a large number of 
species for me, by the aid of which I gradually acquired suffi- 
cient knowledge of the characters to determine for myself 
within narrow limits. I mention these beginnings merely to 
show that I have since possibly the first year of the twenty-five 
paid much more than casual attention to this family. 
I should preface my statistics with the remark that I have 
about the same general conception of species and genera as that 
of Coquillett in his Revision, and that I use mainly the nomen- 
clature of that work. The total number of North American 
Tachinide in the collection is about 260 species, but I leave 
out of account in the following figures some 25 species not deter- 
mined. 
Total number ok namediN Aj species;. 62..55. 5002-4. deenesa ces 232 
SUPHOSedenewa GMeGlestaAllOMont MCGe saw ame class ceva sisal tests ons 31 
DitterencenassieneditG mamediSpeCieSss: . 2.222. .c0.c sche escs sce 201 
Generatnepresenhe cee werk a pert. lao seine vctta ho ore ae eine ote 103 
epecies;collectadubyeman Selig rete Bene ocinry ts lnkocricia rele iale «ors 185 
Total number of species in collection from Rocky Mountain 
andPPaciiCySlOMeercolOnsver sees micinatcaiistr foes come gs os 143 
