1896.] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



miles north of Lusk, Wyoming, during July, 1895, and in part 

 by myself, in the same locality, during August of the same year. 

 The flies were found running about in swarms on the sunny sur- 

 face of small pools whxh were rapidly drying up in the bed of 

 Little Lightning Creek. Their habits resemble those of Hydro- 

 phorus, with species of which they were found associated. They 

 were very agile and not easily captured. 



A NEW EMPID WITH REMARKABLE MIDDLE TARSI. 



By William Morton Wheeler, Ph.D. 



Rhamphomyia scanrissima nov. sp. 



Male (Fig. i).— Black. ^ Face very broad for a male, with a few bristles 

 along either orbit. Antennae velvety black; first and second joints with 

 rather stout hairs; first joint short and cylindrical; second joint spherical; 

 third joint cylindrical, gradually tapering to a blundy rounded tip, on 

 which the short style is inserted. Palpi slender, black, with prominent 

 black hairs. Proboscis as long as the head, yellowish at the tip, labella 

 fuscous, hairy; bristles of the front and hairs of the posterior and inferior 

 orbits prominent, black. Thorax opaque, dusted with gray, especially 

 on the pleurae and just in front of the scutellum; bristles prominent, con- 

 fined almost exclusively 

 to the dorsal and humeral 

 regions; scutellum dusted 

 with gray and beset with 

 several black hairs. Ab- 

 domen usually more shin- 

 ing than the thorax, and 

 covered with shorter black 

 hairs; hypopygium large, 

 porrect and gaping, frin- 

 ged with long black or 

 brownish hairs, which are 

 usually directed back- 

 wards ; central filament 

 long and whip-like, almost 

 completely disengaged. 

 Legs black, in some speci- 

 mens more piceous, hairy; 

 tips of coxae frequently 

 j'ellowish ; first joint of 

 fore tarsi perceptibly in- 

 crassated; middle tibia shortened and thickened, with very long and con- 

 spicuous hairs; joints of the middle tarsi (Fig. 3) curiously modified as 

 lollows: First joint consisting of two parts, a globular base articulating 



Fig. 1. — Rhamphomyia scanrissima % . 



