46 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [February, 



An Aquatic Psychodid. 



By V. L. Kellogg, Stanford University, California. 



While ' ' hunting' ' Blepharoceridae last March in the streams 

 of the Sierra Morena Mountains, a few miles west of Stanford 

 University, my attention was attracted to some very small Ble- 

 pharocerid-like larvae and pupae which prove to be immature 

 stages of a new species of Psychodid. Baron Osten Sacken in 

 referring to some similar aquatic Psychodid larvae and pupae 

 discovered by Frit^ Muller in Brazil twenty years ago, writes 

 of the ' ' extraordinary interest' ' which the study of these ' ' very 

 remarkable aquatic larvae'' possess. As these new California 

 larv^ae show all of the " remarkable structural" details exhibited- 

 by the Brazilian specimens they should possess a similar interest. 

 They are certainly very curious and suggestive immature flies. 



The family Psychodidae, the interesting "moth flies," is 

 unusually well represented on the Pacific Coast, and certain 

 species are very common. Mr. Trevor Kincaid of the Univer- 

 sity of Washington has determined a dozen or more species on 

 the coast of which 10 have been described from coast specimens. 

 I have found certain species numerous about Stanford and along 

 the seashore twenty miles west of here. I am acquainted with 

 the immature stages of but one species, however, that one being 

 a form recently described from my specimens by Kincaid under 

 the name of Pericoma calif ornicnsis.'^ 



In the paper of Miall and Walkerf on the life history of Peri- 

 coma canescens, a paper which I have unfortunateh' not been 

 able to see, there is, as I learn from an abstract of it, a con- 

 densed account of our present knowledge of the early stages of 

 the Psychoidae, and a list of fourteen papers containing this 

 knowledge. The larva of Pericoma canescens is .semi-aquatic ; 

 it breathes air from above the surface, but it can remain im- 

 mersed ' ' for a long time together. " " The larvae seem most 

 at home in water just deep enough to cover the body." Fritz 

 Muller' s aquatic Psychodids which he found in Brazil and gave 



* Kincaid. T. 



t Miall, L. C, and Walker, Norman, The Life History of Pericoma 

 canescens, Trans. Ent. Soc. London, 1895. 



