8 OHIO STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
also taken from the low growing foliage in sunny places among 
the trees. 
One of the best places I have ever found for taking the sexes 
of Tabanus and Chrysops is in the tall grass that skirts the 
marshes of Sandusky Bay. This grass is the Phragmites of 
botanists and grows to a great height. On July 6th, at Black 
Channel, when the wind was high, I went into a patch of this 
erass that was so dense that a net could not be used in it to ad- 
vantage. Here Tabanids were abundant, and it was found that 
by approaching them very carefully, specimens could readily be 
picked off with the fingers. The male and female of T. stygius, 
nivosus, C. moerens and brunneus and the male of T. affinis and 
bicolor were taken in this way. This same grass furnished ex- 
cellent collecting wherever found, but most material was pro- 
cured when the wind was high. On the same date and near the 
same place the male of C. brunneus was taken from the flowers 
of the common spatter-dock, and this and moerens were pro- 
cured by sweeping in the adjacent low-growing herbage. 
Tabanus sulcifrons is an abundant species in northern Ohio 
during the latter part of July and all of August, and a fine oppor- 
tunity for studying its mating habits has been presented. I have 
observed pairs of only two species of this genus in copulation, 
but so many pairs of sulcifrons have been noted in different years 
that it may be of value to record a few statements. All pairs 
have been observed before nine o’clock in the morning. On the 
18th of last August I entered in my note book the following 
note: The day is clear and warm; T. sulcifrons abundant along 
the south side of a woods; between eight o’clock and half past 
eight several pairs observed copulating on the fence, and several 
pairs taken. The male in every instance clung to the edge of a 
rail, and the female with the legs and wings motionless and 
touching nothing hung suspended. The time occupied in making 
the observations on which this note is based was only a few 
minutes, considerably less than half an hour, and as I had been in 
the field: where the species was abundant for some time previous 
and stayed for some minutes thereafter, and saw no pairs except 
as stated above, it would seem that the period for taking obser- 
vations on the mating habits of T. sulcifrons is not a long one, 
and perhaps accounts for the scarcity of printed statements re- 
garding this particular in our other species of the family. In 
an hour after these observations were taken hardly any speci- 
mens of either sex could be found in the vicinity. 
The statement is in print regarding Simulium, which genus 
is composed of species having blood sucking females, that “since 
females once gorged with blood do not and can not return, copu- 
