DIPl'JiROUS FAMILY PANTOPHTHALMIDiE. 553 



less, considering that some eleven years ago the same species (sub- 

 sequently regarded by Knab as new, and described by him under 

 the na,me Pantophthalmus fastuostis) was found by Mr. F. W.Urich 

 breeding in IVinidad ; that, as is Avell known, the Dipterous 

 fauna of the West Indies generally is " essentially a common one, 

 with a strong South American facies" * ; and that the islands of 

 the Lesser Antilles are only separated one from another by short 

 intervals of sea — there can be no real reason to doubt the accu- 

 racy of Thiniberg's century-old assertion that the type of this 

 species came fi-om St. Bai-thelemy I. 



(d) Taxonomic Position. 



' WillistonC North American Diptera,' 3rd Ed., p. 175, 1908), who 

 places the " Family Acanthomeridjs " between Stratiomyiidse and 

 TabanidiB, writes : — " The relationships of the family are very 

 close indeed to the Stratiomyidfe, and the families might, very 

 properly, be united," Kertesz, however, in vol. iii. of his ' Oata- 

 logus Dipterorum,' published in the same year, gives the families 

 embi-aced by the volume in the following sequence: Sti^atio- 

 myiidte ; Erinnida3 (Xylophagidpe) ; Coenomyiidse ; Tabanidfe ; 

 Pantophthalmidfe ; Rhagionidse (Leptidje olim). Enderlein, on 

 the other hand (Zool. Auz., Bd. xli. p. 97, 1912), considers that, 

 from a phylogenetic standpoint, the PantophthalmidjB are extra- 

 ordinarily closely allied to the Xylophagidae and Ccenomyiidaj, 

 and that the morphological relations between all three are so pro- 

 nounced that they might be regarded as groups belonging to a 

 single family, namely the Xylophagidse. The latter would then 

 be divided into the subfamilies Xylophaginro, Coenomyiince, and 

 Pantophthalminpe. Remarking that the presence or absence of 

 spines on the scutellum, the relative size of the head and diffei-ences 

 in bodily shape, whether slender or thickset, furnish insufficient 

 grounds for the separation of families, Enderlein proceeds to 

 show with the help of a diagram *that in venation also the dif- 

 ferences between Pantophthalmidfe, Xylophagidae, and Coeno- 

 myiidjB are unimportant. Hermann, in his paper published four 

 years later, while criticising Enderlein somewhat severely in con- 

 nection with other details, nevertheless (Deutsche Ent. Zeitschr., 

 Jahrg. 1916, p. 47, 1916) expresses his complete agreement with 

 him (and disagreement with Kertesz) in respect of the closeness 

 of the relationship between the Pantophthalmidse, regarded as a 

 family, and the Xylophagidse and Coenomyiidae. 



There can be no doubt that the views of Enderlein and- 

 Hermann as to the systematic position of the Pantophthalmidfe 

 are correct, and indeed, in order to be satisfied upon this point, 

 it is only necessary to compare two representative species, such 

 as l*antophthalmus pictus Wied. and Xylophagus rujiceps Lw. 



In view of the life-history of Pantophthalmidse {vide infra (f )), 



* Williston, Trans. Eut. Soc. Lond. 1896, p. 445 (1896). 



