PAEADISE KEY SAFFOED. 409 



For a systematic treatment of the group the reader is referred to 

 the monumental work of Howard, Dyar, and Knab, " Monograph of 

 the Mosquitoes of North and Central America and the "West Indies," 

 published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 1912 to 1917. 



HORSEFLIES AND DEER FLIES. 



While sitting on the lodge veranda our attention was frequently 

 attracted by passing teams, the horses of which were attended by 

 boys whose business it was to protect them from the attacks of 

 insects; from mosquitoes, I at first thought, but from horseflies, I 

 was told by Mr. Mosier. These flies are very annoying in southern 

 Florida, not only to horses and other animals but to human beings 

 as well. The largest of them all, a magnificent emerald-eyed insect, 

 called by the Seminole Indians chill oc-o-dono, is Tabanus amcrlcanus 

 (pi. 45, fig. 3), the interesting nupital flight of which has been re- 

 cently described by Mr. Thomas E. Snyder, of the Office of Forest 

 Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. 1 



Among the other horseflies collected on Paradise Key by Mr. 

 Snyder were Tabanus trijunctus Walker (pi. 53, fig. 2), T. melano- 

 cerus Wied., and T. lineola Fabr. Mr. Snyder found T. trijivnctus 

 very common from Hobe Sound to Paradise Key, often flying after 

 automobiles and railway trains; so annoying is it to painters and 

 other workmen that they have to protect themselves from it by 

 means of portable smudges. Of T. lineola he says that it is such a 

 pest in some localities that horses and mules have to be protected 

 from it by gunny sacking with holes cut for the eyes. Thus gro- 

 tesquely clothed they suggest the mounts of the Ku-Klux Klan. 

 Among the deer flies, belonging to the genus Chrysops, much smaller 

 and more brightly colored than the horseflies, but equally blood- 

 thirsty, were two species, Chrysops flavidus (pi. 53, fig. 6) and Chry- 

 sops plangens, both of which are pretty widely distributed in the 

 eastern United States. Their predacious larvae, like those of Ta- 

 banus, live in water, in mud, or under stones, and feed upon water 

 snails and soft-bodied insects. 



OTHER DIPTERA FROM PARADISE KEY. 



The soldier fly, Rermatica ittucens, shown on plate 53, figure 9, lays 

 its eggs in decaying organic matter. Among the Syrphidae, or flower 

 flies, are the little Ocyptamus fuscipennis (pi. 53, fig. 1), Eristalus 

 vinetorum (pi. 53, fig. 4) , Eristalus albifrons, and Meromacrus acutus. 

 These insects, called " hover flies " by the English, from their habit 

 of hovering over flowers, feed on nectar and pollen. The larvae 



1 See Snyder, Thomas E., Notes on horseflies as a pest in southern Florida. Proc. En- 

 tomological Soe. of Wash., 18 : 208. 191(1. 



