1894.] 69 



SUPPLEMENT TO ANNOTATED LIST OF BRITISH TACEINIID^. 



BY E, H. MEADE. 



Since the completion* o£ my list or descriptive catalogue of the 

 British Tachinids, a few new or nndescribed species, and several others 

 not recorded as British, have come under my notice ; the capture of a 

 good many so-called rare species in new localities has also been 

 reported to me, and the further study of this difficult family has 

 shown me the propriety of subdividing some of the genera. 



The TachiniidcB have lately received a good deal of attention from 

 foreign Dipterists. I may especially mention Messrs. Brauer and 

 von Bergenstamm in Vienna, Mr. Van der Wulp in Holland, and Mr. 

 C. H. Tyler Townsend in America. The researches of both the latter 

 authors have been principally confined to transatlantic species, but 

 the two former have revised the whole family of TacJiiniidcB with its 

 allies ;t their observations applying to both European and exotic 

 species. 



Messrs. Brauer and v. Bergenstamm have so revolutionized the 

 whole nomenclature and arrangement of these parasitic flies, that it 

 requires a good deal of study to become acquainted with the system 

 they have adopted. They ignore almost all the previously estab- 

 lished genera, and form a much larger number of small groups 

 which are not connected in a chain or linear series, but are more or 

 less independent of each other; their affinities extending in different 

 directions, allying them by one point to one group, and by another to 

 a different one. The arrangement puts me in mind of the fanciful 

 quinary arrangement of insects made many years ago by the late 

 Wm. Sharp McLeay in the " Horae Entomologicse." 



These authors not only introduce a great number of new generic 

 names, but abandon many of those that have been long in use, thus 

 causing great confusion. The plates accompanying the work, which 

 refer chiefly to the structure of the heads (a great number of which 

 are figured), are very good, and of great value; and the work itself 

 is full of information, and worthy of careful study. A decidedly 

 natural arrangement of these flies is not possible, for the different 

 species are connected with each other by so many links, that it is 

 almost useless to attempt to form a genus of more than a few species 

 that shall not include one or more aberrant ones which connect it 

 with some other ; we must, therefore, be content to adopt a more or 

 less artificial classification that will enable the student to identify 

 species with tolerable facility. 



Ent. Mo. Mag., October, 1892. f Muscaria Schizomct(ip,i, 1889 to 189-3. 



