140 FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT 



peka, Kas., and by myself. A second and more beautiful species of 

 Tachina-fly (Fig. 68) also attacks it. It is easil^y dis- 

 tinguished from all other species of the genus with 

 which I am familiar by the bright golden-yellow of 

 the third and fourth abdominal joints, which have 

 only the hind borders black, and it may be vulgarly 

 called the Gold-banded Tachina-fly. 



Tachina [Belvosia] bifasciata (Fabr.)--r^— Length, 0.50 inch; expanse, 1.00 

 inch. Head broader thaii thorax; face broad, silvery-white, with pnrplish reflections, 

 and ganiislied with the usual black bristles; front more dusky, with two rows of large, 

 incurved bristles, interspersed, as usual, with numerous smaller ones, and divided by a 

 smooth, depressed, dark brown stripe ; occiput dark, with the three triangularly ar- 

 ranged ocelli amber-colored; labium ferruginous, with hairs of same color; maxipalps 

 ferruginous, with short black bristles; eyes smooth and dark purple-brown; antennaB 

 with the two basal joints brown, the second nearly thrice as long as first, the third 

 darker, flattened and nearly thrice as long as second, thesetre black; hind part of head 

 covered with dense white hair. Thorax quadrate, polished, black, except at corners, 

 which are brown, with a bluish cast inclining to pruinescence anteriorly, where alone 

 the vitta3 are distinct ; the usual transverse suture distinct, and the larger bristles 

 numerous around border and in four lines on dorsum ; scutel tinged with brown : 

 wings fuliginous, almost opaque, veins brown; alulaj dull white; legs strongly bristled, 

 black, with ferruginous pulvilli. Abdomen stout, first and second joints deep blue- 

 black, third and last joints golden-yellow, with only the 'posterior borders black ; two 

 stout medio-dorsal bristles from posterior e(\gQ of jts 1 and 2, (stoutest on 2), and a ring 

 of them around 3 and 4. 



One c? bred from Anisota 7-iibicimda, and one captured by Mr. Lintner at Center, 

 N. Y., in July. 



This is evidently the insect briefly characterized as Musca bifasciata by Fabricius, 

 {Syst. Antl. No. 78), and subsequentlj^ more fully by Wiedemann, {AussereuropcBischer 

 Zweifl. Ins., II, p. 305), Avho, however, describes the 3rd antennal joint as four times as 

 long as 2nd. Still later it was referred to the genus Nemoroca by Macquart, and to the 

 genus Latreillia by Robineau-Desvoidy. The last named author again referred it to a 

 still different genus, Lalage, {Dipt, des Env. de Paris, I, p. 5G3), where it is described 

 from Fabricius's typical specimen as having a golden band around the middle of the 

 second and third nhAovaXnaX ]o\nts. The genus Lalage is founded on the " absence of 

 bristles on the apex of the first abdominal joint," so that I can not see how our insect 

 could be referred to it. Macquart gives good reason for believing that his Senom.etopia 

 bicincta and H-D-sBelvosia bicincta represent the female, and, consequently, unites them 

 into one species, vmder the name of Belvosia bifasciata {Dipt. Ex. Tom. II, Part 3, pp. 

 55-7). 



The female (which I have not seen) differs in the somewhat broader face, in tlie 

 3rd joint of antenn.ie being only twice as long as the second, and in the abdomiual 

 bands being white instead of golden. 



We thus see that this one species has been construed to represent four modern 

 genera, and, though this may well be called pretty fine hair-splitting, the different 

 characters which gave birth to it are important and conspicuous compared to those 

 upon which some of our modern genera in other Orders have lately been founded. Is 

 it any wonder, therefore, that the field-naturalist should get heartily disgusted at such 

 unnatural, so-called generic distinctions ! 



It may be well to add that Meigen {Beschr. d. bek. Eur. Zweifl. Lis. Vol. IV, p. 381) 

 described (in 1824) a Tachina bicincta, which has a white ring around ihebase of the 2nd 

 and Srd abdominal joints ; and that Macquart's figure of Belvosia bifasciata (sex not 

 indicated) shows the head and face, and the abdominal bands much narrower than in 



