S96 Professor E. B. Poulton on 



" This swarm was noted all over our quarters : every 

 house our Officers were i3resent in at that time reported 

 them." 



" We none of us have ever come across a case like this 

 during our service in the country. . . ." 



Colonel Yerbury believes, from his knowledge of the 

 fly, that it is erroneous to suppose that it actually hunts 

 and kills living termites. He has written to me as follows 

 upon the subject: — "Oct. 11, 1906. With reference to 

 the Ochromyia jejuna question I can only reiterate my 

 opinion that it is absolutely impossible for this fly to 

 kill anything. All Mnsc'uljB will go to moisture, and as 

 winged termites come to grief in many ways, doubtless 

 many a crushed termite attracts a muscid. The tongue 

 of 0. jejuna and 0.fuscij)cnnis is an extraordinary organ, 

 but it is not that of a predaceous fly but more closely 

 resembles that of Glossina wdthout the piercing tip which 

 the Tsetse flies possess. Possibly this is the explanation 

 of my observation* in Ceylon of these flies taking away 

 grains of sugar from large ants {Lobe/pelta and Camponotus), 

 i. c. that the tongue acts as a suction pump — so when it is 

 a case of ' pull devil, pull baker ' between the fly and the 

 ant the former gets the best of it." 



If the opportunity should occur again, it is to be hoped 

 that the flies may be subjected to a most minute and 

 critical observation, in which special attention is directed 

 to the tongue. If such examination should prove that 

 Ochromyia is undoubtedly predaceous, we should be driven 

 to suppose that the toogue contains some piercing iostru- 

 ment, undiscovered and concealed, or that the thin body- 

 walls of the termite are penetrated by suction alone. The 

 statement of these alternatives may serve as some slight 

 guide to future observations. 



The Trey of the Larval Spjihid Fly, Xanthanclrus comtus, 

 Harr.,= Melanostoma hyalinatum, Fin., No. 309. 



The preceding examples of predaceous Diptera have 

 been confined to the perfect insect; but as the material for 

 the present Memoir accunnilated, I received an instance of 



* Colonel Yerbury tells me that he observed this on the verandah 

 of the Rest House, Kanthalai, Oct. 19, 1890. 



