March, 1898.] ToWNSEND : DiPTERA FROM THE TaMAULIPAN REGION. 51 



that I recorded the species there from the District of Columbia, in a S 

 which I collected August 19. On page 10 1 of the same paper, Mr. 

 Hunter says that, with the exception of Kansas records, Spilomyia 

 quadrifasciata Say had not been recorded "outside of some of the ex- 

 treme eastern States." I have recorded it from Michigan, in my paper 

 above referred to. The fact that, throughout his paper, he repeatedly 

 quotes Snow's records of species from Colorado and New Mexico, and 

 entirely ignores my previous records of the same species of Colorado, 

 New Mexico and Arizona, indicates that my paper was not seen by him. 

 The drawing of broad statements as to distribution, without consulting 

 the literature bearing on the subject gives rise to wrong impressions and 

 can not be too strongly condemned ; especially when it is remembered 

 that my paper was a long and important contribution, on Syrphidoe par- 

 ticularly as well as other diptera, and appeared fully a year before, and 

 in such a prominent medium as the Transactions of the American En- 

 tomological Society ! 



Volucella tamaulipana, sp. nov. 



$ O. Length, $}4 to Sj^mm., both sexes ranging through these sizes. 



The O m 1'fe 1 3 easily distinguished by having a lighter or more yellowish abdo- 

 men and scutellum lhan $ . This is not by any means apparent in dried specimens. 

 Front aod face light yellow, fa:e much produced downward to a blunt point ; face and 

 front white pilose, vertex with black hair, cheeks with heavy shining black or brown 

 stripes ; facial stripe much less distinct, fuscous, brown at oval margin. Face very 

 gently concave above the slight tubercle. Frontal vitta moderately broad, shining 

 brown, lighter arteriorly. Frontal triangle yellow, tinged with fuscous along middle, 

 hairs somewhat brownish. Antennae about half as long as face, reddish-yellow ; third 

 joint subequilateral, a little bulged on edges of basal portion, and slightly narrowed 

 on apical portion ; arista hardly as long as antennse, thinly long hairy above, and 

 more thickly short hairy below. Thorax greenish- black, thickly clothed with shoit 

 yellow hair, with a patch of black hair on posterior central portion of disk next the 

 yellow prescutellar spot, whole of scutellum and larger or smaller prescutellar 

 spot bright yellow, the wide lateral margins of thorax same except a fuscous 

 space immediately above base of wings. A yellow spot on pleura: directly be- 

 low humeri, and a fuscous pale area in front of wing bases. Hair of scutellum 

 bright yellow on anterior half or less, abruptly black on posterior half. Some longer^ 

 weak bristles or hairs on edge of scutellum. Metanotum shining black, with an 

 arcuate line of yellow next scutellum, and a fuscous area between. Disk of scutellum, 

 viewed from above, appears broadly fuscous Abdomen of a general yellowish brown ; 

 first segment blackish in middle, and black on narrow hind border ; second segment 

 wholly light yellow, except the sinuate hind margin blackish or brown, or with a 

 median line of the brownish separating the elongate lateral yellow markings. 

 Third segment with the same yellow markings quite distinct on anterior half 

 of segment in some specimens, more or less distinctly divided by a median viita, 



