314 CR. Osten Sachen: 



I have Seen Eulonchus hovering over the flowers in California, just 

 as Coquillett saw Mhaphiomidas. 



With all that I must confess tliat the great resemblance of 

 complicated venations in two different families^ like those of the 

 Midaidae and Apiocerina is a rather startling fact. Further 

 discoveries of new forras in Western America and Australia may 

 perhaps explain its significance. 



The larger development of the lips and the tendency of the 

 proboscis to elongation in the group of the Apiocerina may be ex- 

 plained by the fact that they suck flowers (as appears at least from 

 Mr, Coquillett's Observation), while the other Asilidae suck insects, 

 whose more or less tough chitinous covering must be pierced by the 

 proboscis. The change in the nature of the food has nothing to 

 astonish us when we call to mind the Tabanidae, Erapidae and other 

 families containing blood-sucking, predaceous and flower-sucking 

 species at the same time. 



Compare for instance in Westw. Introd. II, 541 the Statements 

 about Pangonia rostrata and longirostris, and in Philippi, Verh. Z. 

 B. Ges. 1865, p. 707 about the chilian common „Potoquin", the 

 Pangonia lata Guer. Should therefore Phaphiomidas prove to 

 feed on the sap of flowers, it would explain the change of structure 

 of its proboscis, Avithout preventing it from counting among the 

 Asilidae. 



In my former paper (p. 293) I expressed some reluctance against 

 introducing a separate section of the Asilidae for Apiocera alone; 

 but since the discovery of a second, still more aberrant generic type 

 of the same group has become an undoubted fact, I do not hesitate to 

 form the section Apiocerina, which I consider as Asilidae, adapted 

 to peculiar conditions of life, and holding the same borderland 

 Position as the Ptychopterina among the Tipulidae. Not having 

 any specimens of Phaphiomidas before nie at present I must 

 content myself with data borrowed from my own description and give 

 a definition which is merely provisional and tentative: 



Section IV. Apiocerina. 

 The tip of the iirst, and sometimes also of the second vein 

 issuing from the discal cell end before the apex of the wing (and 

 not after as in the other sections of the Asilidae). Large develop- 

 ment of the lips, and a tendency towards a gradual elongation of the 

 proboscis: it is quite short in the chilian Apiocera brevicornis Phil,, 

 longer in some australian species, and reaches excessive proportions 

 in Phaphiomidas. Absence on the metapleura of the tuft or fan- 

 like row of bristles, occurring in the other Asilidae (in Phaphio- 



