1920] Seamans: Anatomy of Anthomyia 201 



study that world from the insect standpoint as its center, to 

 reaUze as clearly as we can, by insight and imagination, what 

 it would be to a beetle or a butterfly, a caterpillar or a grub, 

 if it were endowed with our capacities of observation, analysis 

 and inference; how and to what ends and by what means it 

 would act upon that world and how and by what means its 

 world would react upon it in turn ; and what has been the history 

 of the system of actions and reactions through the agency of 

 which it has become what it finds itself to be. Except as we 

 can approximate this ideal — in so far, that is, as we adhere in 

 our studies to the merely human point of view — our perspectives 

 must be distorted and our emphases wrongly placed, to the 

 confusion and disappointment of our efforts to solve the 

 intricate problems of insect life. 



THE EXTERNAL ANATOMY OF ANTHOMYIA 

 RADICUM Linn.* 



(Diptera, Anthomyidae) . 



By Howard L. Seamans. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction: Acknowledgments. 



Technique: Clearing and Mounting, Method of Drawing, 



General Description of the Fly. 



Anatomical Structure: The Head, the Thorax, the Abdomen. 



Summary. 



Abbreviations for Figures. 



Explanation of Plates. 



The North American Anthomyidae, though belonging to 

 one of the largest and most important of the families of the 

 Diptera, are nevertheless in very unsatisfactory condition from 

 the systematic standpoint. The permanent work that has been 

 accomplished on these flies has been concerned largely with the 

 economic relationships of individual species, and, in this country 

 at least, very little thorough work along taxonomic or mor- 

 phological lines has been done. It is apparent that there is a 

 real opportunity for systematic work in this group, and, as a 

 preliminary step in this direction, the writer undertook a 

 morphological study of Anthomyia radicum Linnaeus, one 

 of our most common species in this family, and this paper 

 gives the results of this study. 



*Contributed from the Entomological Laboratories of Montana State College. 



