386 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Nov., '07 



Immature Stages of a Psychodid Fly. 

 David T. Fullaway, Stanford University, Cal. 



The Psychodidae have received considerable attention in 

 America from Banks, Kincaid and others. Twelve species are 

 listed by Mr. Banks in the East (Can. Ent. Vol. 33, p. 273), 

 and in "The Psychodidae of the Pacific Coast" (Ent. News, 

 Vol. jo, p. 30), Prof. Kincaid describes, from California, Ore- 

 gon, Washington, Alaska and the Pribilof Islands, ten other 

 species, with notes on two previously described. Nothing, 

 however, has been recorded concerning the immature stages 

 of any of these, excepting Professor Kellogg's account of the 

 larva and pupa of an aquatic form, Pericoma calif ornica Kin- 

 caid, found in a California creek bed. 



The writer, while collecting on the Stanford stock farm 

 (Santa Clara Co., Cal.), during the 1906 Christmas holidays, 

 found Psychodidae in great numbers about an unused and 

 leaky watering-trough in one of the paddocks. The ground 

 in the neighborhood of the trough was thickly covered over 

 with rotting straw and manure, and the water dripping from 

 the trough had soaked through the straw, forming pools in 

 places, and, in general, making the whole mass somewhat 

 seepy. 



The flies were present in such numbers that it was con- 

 fidently hoped the immature stages might also be found, and 

 to this end some of the manure was brought into the labor- 

 atory for examination. Both larvae and pupae were found in 

 it, and from these the adult flies were reared, to be certain of 

 their identity. The species is almost certainly Psychoda 

 schizura Kincaid, the characteristic V-shaped ventral plate of 

 the female and caudal appendages of the male closely corre- 

 sponding to the same characters in Kincaid's .description of that 

 species. 



The larva (Fig. 1, a and b) is of the same type as that 

 described by Miall and Walker (see Miall and Walker's ac- 

 count of the immature stages of Pericoma cancsccns, a British 

 species: Trans. Ent. Soc, London, 1895, p. 141), and not like 



