115 



pretiitiou of the species le^aidiuj'" its systemutic position luis, so far as 

 known to nie, not yet been given by any one. Those who have 

 expressed an opinion on this snbject either i)ossesse(l an insutTfieient 

 knowledge in dipterology, or they were in donbt or made erroneous 

 statements, since they drew their conclusions solely from the insufiii- 

 cieut descriptions and illustrations of the imago of this parasite. 



Aside from those determinations, according to which the Uji belongs 

 to the Tachinidaj, we find in the literature three opinions regarding the 

 genus to which this fly should be referred. 



The first statement is made by Cornalia, who, in the above-cited arti- 

 cle, while discussing Gu6rin's note* on TacMua oudji, says that this 

 fly probably belongs to the subgenus Phoroeera. 



During the years 1883-'85 Prof. C. Sasaki, of Tokyo, Japan, carefully 

 investigated this x^arasite and published the results in the Journal of 

 the College of Science, Imperial ITniversity, Tokyo, 1880, vol. i, parti, 

 without discussing, however, the question of the systematic position of 

 the fly. 



In my review of this interesting i)aper in Wien. Ent. Zeit. (1888,i). 45) 

 I indicated that judging from the figure given by Sasaki the fly appeared 

 to resemble Nemorjea. But nothing that was certain could be said, 

 since neither from the descri^jtiou nor from the figure could the char- 

 acters necessary to the determination of the genus be made out. Sasaki's 

 des(;ription of the fly is, however, the best which we have so far. He 

 calls the parasite erroneously JJgimy'ia sericaria Rond. instead of seri- 

 carke Rond. 



Mons. Bigot, of Paris, arrived at a ditferent result. His conclusion, 

 drawn from Sasaki's figure, is that Ugimyia sericarke should be referred 

 to the genus LesJcia R. Desv. (cf. Bull. Soc. Ent. France, 1888, p. Ixxxix). 

 However, a glance at Sasaki's tab. i. Fig. 3, where the wings are repre- 



* As already stated there is iu this note nothing regarding the systematic position 

 of the Uji, hnt it is possible that Gu6riu expressed an opinion on this point in an 

 ai'tiele in Revue et Magaz. ZooL, ser. 2, torn. 22, pp. 178-181, cited after Meiuert, 

 which is unknown to me. It is possible that Cornalia only thought of Phoroeera, 

 because Guerin had bred a species of this genus from the Ailanthns silkworm. It 

 would seem to be of interest to reproduce here Cornalia's words {BoU. Soc. Entom. 

 Ital., 1870, p. 219) : ''II Gu6iin iufatti pote osservare nell baco delF Ailanthns, da lui 

 introdotto in Europa, una mosca parasitta la cui larva vive nel bruco e nella crisa- 

 lide di quello; e la Phoroeera pumieata Meig. La Saturnia cijnihia dun([U(! origiuaria 

 della China, ha qui pure fra noi la sua malattia del moscone." I also quote here what 

 Cornalia says in connection with these remarks : "E qui opjiortuno il dire che ii conte 

 Castellani, il quale fu in China in cerca di buon seme del bombice del gelso, nel suo 

 libretto suF Educazione del baco da seta iu China {Firenze, 1860, pp. 139-148), acceuua 

 come anche nell'impero Chinese il baco del gelso sia soggetto ad asser vittima di una 

 mosca, che ne fa strage, mosca che il Guerin chiamo Taehitia casteUanii. Dalla des- 

 crizione che il viaggiatore italiano fa del parasitto non si potrebbe ritenere differeute 

 la specie giapponese dalla Chinese ; ma cio solo potranno decidere nlteriori e jjrecise 

 osservazioni. Secondo I'Adams I'lTgi attaca al Giappoue anche la Saturnia (della 

 querela) Yama-mai, diffuse pure in Europa per opera del Gu^riu," I believe that 

 Tachina ca-steUanii Guer. is only a manuscript name. 

 9676— :N^o. 3 3 



