1898.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 167 



Some Characteristic Maritime Diptera from the South end of 

 Padre Island, and the Adjacent Texas Coast.— I. 



By C. H. Tyler Townsend. 



In the Summer of 1895. during the month of June, the writer 

 collected a few insects on the south end of Padre Island, which 

 was visited on several occasions. This island belongs to the 

 Antillean province, and to that fauna which should be known as 

 the Mexican Maritime. The Diptera, especially, which occur 

 here, bear a characteristic appearance indicative of the conditions 

 of environment which surround them. They are mostly of a 

 whitish or gray color, thus assimilating well with the stretches of 

 sandy beach which they frequent. Some interesting species were 

 collected here, as well as on the beach of the mainland. 



TABANIDJE. 



1. Tabanus maritimus n. sp. — Length 10-10.5 mm. Differs from 7. 

 psammophilus O. S. as follows : Face gray, with white hairs; palpi white; 

 first two antennal joints pale yellowish, the third brownish with annulate 

 portion darker. Thorax black, clothed with white hairs, and with three 

 grayish white pollinose vittse. Abdomen evenly tapering to tip, blackish, 

 hind edges of segments whitish yellow, the whole thickly clothed with a 

 soft white pubescence. Legs pale yellowish, tips of tibiae slightly brown- 

 ish, tarsi hardly so. Wings whitish, the stump of a vein near origin of 

 upper branch of third vein is well marked in two of the specimens, being 

 as long as the basal section of the branch, but in the other it is exceed- 

 ingly short and barely perceptible; posterior cells all open, none of them 

 narrowed ; halteres whitish yellow. Difference between the large and 

 small facets of the eye is not marked, being gradual and slight, and the 

 small facets cover an extensive area along posterior orbit, the large facets 

 being confined to the inner central portion of the eye. In life this species 

 presents a uniformly white appearance, being almost exactly the color of 

 the sand and drift-wood upon which it habitually rests. 



Three males, June 29, 1895, on logs and sand on beach, at 

 south end of Padre Island, Texas. 



T. psammophihis was taken by Hubbard and Schwarz on the 

 sea-beach of the Florida coast, at Fort Capron. Mrs. Slosson 

 has recently taken it at Lake Worth, Florida (det. Johnson). 



It is quite possible that T. nanus Mcq. , described from Texas, 

 is identical with the present species. But should this be the case, 

 the name nanus is preoccupied, as already pointed out by Osten 

 Sacken, and cannot be retained. The size, 4 lines (= 8 mm.), 

 more nearly coincides with the present specimens than with 



