ABT. 7 AMERICAI7 MUSCOID FLIES llT VIENNA MUSEUM ALDRICH H 



Brauer and Bergenstamm, 1891, in their S3^stematic list of the 

 material in the Vienna Museum, entered WUlistonia copulata Wiede- 

 mann on page 403, and Hystricia cofulata Wiedemann on page 409, 

 but gave no indication that these were described as a single species 

 by Wiedemann. 



The supposed female is a male of a species of Belvosia. It lacks 

 the fourth abdominal tergite almost completely, which greatly 

 changes its appearance and misled Wiedemann. There are only 

 one or two narrow vestiges of this tergite present, but they show 

 characteristic dense white pollen; the fifth sternite is present and 

 indicates the male sex, as the absence of fronto-orbitals also does. 



The male (to which the species is hereby restricted) has been 

 I'eported upon in detail and the genitalia well figured by Engel. He 

 follows Brauer and Bergenstamm in placing it in the genus Hystricia, 

 and I agree in this. On looking for the species in the National 

 Museum, I found only a single female, which Townsend had placed 

 under a manuscript specific name in his genus Hystriciopsis. This 

 genus was proposed by Townsend ® for the new species ohscura, from 

 Peru ; the characters were as follows : " Runs to HystHcia in Brauer 

 and Bergenstamm's tables. May be distinguished by the epistoma 

 being only moderately salient, not nasute; by the thickly haired 

 tegulae, and by the distinctly curvate character of the spinelike 

 macrochaetae." On comparing obscura with a??ioena Macquart, the 

 genotype of Hystj^icia, I find they are just alike in the pilosity of the 

 calypter, while the other characters adduced seem too slight to estab- 

 lish a genus upon. Hystricia has, among other characters, bare para- 

 facials, pilose eyes, palpi of good size but not excessivelj^^ developed, 

 lower calypter hairy, with numerous spinose bristles on scutellum 

 and 2-4 abdominal tergites, also a few on the sternites. 



Hystricia copulata is a smaller species than amoena and obscura. 

 The pollen of the male is spoiled, but in the female in the National 

 Museum it is slate colored on the parafrontals, pale plumbeous on 

 parafacials, face and cheeks; the palpi are almost black, only the 

 tips a little paler ; anterior part of thorax with considerable cinereous 

 pollen, becoming thinner toward scutellum, which is shining brown. 

 Calypters dark brown with dense blackish hair. The abdomen is 

 shining brown with some indications of reddish, and in a very oblique 

 view a slight trace of brown pollen. Venter wholly shining. Tlie 

 narrowest part of the front is 0.15 of head width in male, and 0.22 

 m female. The cheek is about 0.4 the eye height in both sexes. 

 the beard white behind but considerably mixed \iii\\ black on upper 

 and anterior part of cheek; several rather distinct bristles stand a 



« Ins. Ins. Menst., vol. 2, 1914, p. 85. 



