VII 



TABANIDAE- -ACANTHOMERIDAE 



483 



of them .lunatic, but others live in the earth or in decavino- 



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wood; they are of predaceous habits, attacking and sucking 

 Insect -larvae, or worms. Their form is cyliiulric, attenuate 

 at the two extremities; the slender small head is retractile, and 

 armed with a pair of conspicuous, curved black hooks. The 

 body is surrounded by several promi- 

 nent rings. The breathing apparatus is 

 apparently but little developed, and con- 

 sists of a small tube at the extremity of 

 the body, capable of being exserted or 

 withdrawn ; in this two closely approxi- 

 mated stigmata are placed. In a larva, 

 probably of this family, found by the 

 writer in the shingle of a shallow stream 

 in the New Forest, the aniiuli are re- 

 placed by seven circles of prominent 

 pseudopods, on the abdominal segments 

 about eight in each circle, and each of 

 these feet is surmounted by a crown of 

 small hooks, so that there are fifty or ^ '" 

 sixty feet distributed equally over the 

 middle part of the body without refer- 

 ence to upper or lower surface. The . 



FIG. 230. Larva of a Talia- 



ngures ot the larva of T. cordujcr, by nid. \i Atylotus fulvus.] 

 Brauer, and of Hac'inatvpotit fl n rinlis, by 

 Perris, are something like this, but have 

 no setae on the pseudopods. The meta- 

 morphoses of several Tabanidae are described and figured by Hart : : 

 the pupa is remarkably like a Lepidopterous pupa. "\Ve have five 

 genera and about a score of species of Tabanidae in Britain. 



Fam. 16. Acanthomeridae. A very small family of two 

 _> nera (dicantkomer.a and Bhaphiorhynchus) confined- to Aim-rira, 

 and including the largest Diptera, some being two inches long. 

 The antenna is terminated by a compound of seven segments and 

 a style; the proboscis is short, and the squama rudimentary. 

 The general form reminds one of Tabanidae or Oestridae. A 

 dried larva exists in the Vienna collection; it is amphipneustic, 

 and very remarkable on account of the great size of the anterior 



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stigma. 



1 Bull. Illinois Lai. iv. 1895. 



A, the larva, x 3 ; B, 

 head ; C, end of body ; 

 D. one of the pseudopods. 

 Xew Forest. 



