Ik, 253 
Apri. 5, 1918 Vou. VI, pp. 83-84 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NEW ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL CLUB 
VERMILEO COMSTOCKI, SP. NOV., AN INTERESTING 
LEPTID FLY FROM CALIFORNIA. 
BY WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 
WHILE camping during August, 1917, with the members of the 
Cornell Biological Expedition in Alta Meadow, near the Sequoia 
Giant Forest in the Sierras of California (alt. 9000 ft.), I became 
much interested in a fly larva which makes funnel-shaped pits 
in the fine sand, like those of ant-lions. Small insects, especially 
ants, tumble into these pits, and are at once seized and killed by 
the larva. Prof. J.C. Bradley informed me that many years ago 
the same insect had been found by Prof. J. H. Comstock in the 
mountains of California, and had been taken to Ithaca, but was 
not reared to the adult stage owing to an accident to the ma- 
terial. Of about two hundred larve which I brought to Boston 
in September, 1917, more than half survived the severe winter, 
and were used for observations which will be recorded in a future 
paper. In structure and behavior the larve were so much like 
those of the famous Vermileo degeert Macq. of southern Europe 
that I was convinced of their generic identity. This conviction 
became a certainty when, on April 1, a female fly emerged in the 
breeding pan. As the larve had been kept in the cold much of 
the winter, it would seem that the time of emergence in their 
native environment must be either April or May. It is probable 
that Osten Sacken and other dipterists have failed to find the 
imago, because they collected in the high Sierras only during the 
