RHAMPHIDIA. 417 



absent ; the 2nd longitudinal vein beginning about the middle of 

 the wing (somewhat before the middle in B. ferruglneu) ; prjefurca 

 longer than the remainder of the 2nd vein, but sometimes longer, 

 sometimes shorter than the 3rd vein ; the 3rd vein gently curved 

 or straight ; the submarginal cell broader at the tip than at the 

 base ; * basal part of 3rd vein very short (almost punctiform 

 in fernir/inea). Occasionally the anterior cross-vein is absent, 

 and when this is the case the submarginal cell is in direct 

 contact with the discal cell.t Discal cell approximately oblong, 

 or of irregular shape ; posterior cross-vein just beyond base 

 of discal cell ; the 5th, 6th, and 7th longitudinal veins gently 

 curved. 



Range. Europe, "West Indies, Soutli America, Australia, and 

 the East. 



This genus is very closely allied to Elephantomyia, Os. Sac, of 

 which four species are known to exist in the Orient, altliough it 

 does not appear to have been taken within the region covered 

 by the present volume. The principal difference is that in 

 Eleplmniomyia the proboscis is very slender and enormously 

 px-olonged, to a length equal to that of the whole body ; the 

 palpi being extremely small and very easily overlooked, and 

 placed near the tip of the proboscis. The venation is almost the 

 same as in BhampJiidia, including the absence of the marginal 

 cross-vein. 



Life-historij . — The larva of one European species (i?. longi- 

 rostris, Mo-.) lives in the stems of Butnex aquaticus according to 

 Mr. Gercke, who believes that it lives under water.;]; 



Eour species were recorded by Loew from Prussian amber 

 (' Bernst. u. Bernst.-fauna '), but Osteu Sacken noted that he had 

 not seen them himself and that they might not belong to this 

 genus in his acceptation of it. 



Two other names have been suggested to supplant the name 

 Bhamphidia iov this genus: Megarhimi, St. Eargeau (1825), 

 whicli in the index to the same volume he changed to 

 Helius ; while Stephens in 1829 proposed Leptorliina (in 

 Curtis's British Entomology) for the European species longi- 

 rostris. Meigen described the geiuis under its present name in 

 1830 (Syst. Besch. vi, p. 281), and it is very satisfactory to at least 

 the author of the present work, to find that the wholesale icono- 



* In B. flavipes, Macq., a North Americau species, very much broader, owing 

 to the wide divergence of tne 2nd and 3rd longitudinal veins. 



i' This occurs in the European 7f. longirostris, Wied., and the North American 

 B. fluvipes, Macq. The almost punctiform nature of the junction of the 

 3rd vein with the 2nd in B. ferruginea foreshadows the disappearance of the 

 anterior cross-vein altogether, as happens in the two non-Oriental species noted 

 here. 



+ Verb. Ver. naturw. Unterhaltung, Hamburg, vi (1880). 



