53 



In the series before me are twelve males and over thirty females, 

 six males and eleven females of which were taken at the same 

 time — Newton and Brookline (near Hammond's Pond), Massa- 

 chusetts, September 18, and Center Harbor, New Hampshire, 

 September 10. Specimens have also been collected at Bridg- 

 ton, Maine, August 25; Liberty, Maine, September 16 (J. A. 

 Cushman) ; Killington Peak, Vermont, August 26 (C. W. J.) ; New 

 Bedford, Massachusetts (Dr. Hough); West Gloucester, Massa- 

 chusetts, October 12, from a fungus Armillaria mellea (J. H. 

 Emerton); Chester, Massachusetts, August 6 (C. W. J.); Cole- 

 brook, Connecticut, September 10 (W. M. Wheeler). 



Platypeza banski, sp. nov. 

 Plate 5, figs. 5, 9, 10. 



cf . — Face and antennae black. Thorax brownish black with a wide obscure 

 dorsal stripe, with a narrow median black line; pleura and scutellum brownish 

 black. Abdomen black with wide light-grayish bands on the third, fourth and 

 fifth segments, the band on the third interrupted by about one-third of its 

 length, on the fourth by one-fifth and on the fifth by a narrow dorsal line; the 

 sixth segment entirely grayish. Legs black, bases of the front and middle 

 tibiae and tarsi yellowish; hind tarsi moderately flattened. Halteres black. 

 Wings hyaline, costal and first basal cell of about equal length; the posterior 

 cross-vein less than its length from the hind margin at the end of the fifth vein. 

 Length 3 mm. 



9 . — Face light gray, front brown, antennae black, the row of black hairs on 

 the occiput prominent. Thorax brownish with a slightly darker dorsal stripe 

 and conspicuous row of dorso-central hairs; humeri, sides, pleura and scutellum 

 grayish. Abdomen black with bands of grayish white, the first segment with a 

 wide posterior margin, the second with a basal band narrowly interrupted; the 

 third widely interrupted, the fourth narrowly interrupted and the fifth and 

 sixth continuous. Legs brown, the femora blackish. Halteres yellow. 

 Length 2.5 mm. 



Holotype, Falls Church, Virginia, November 15; and a para- 

 type. Great Falls, Virginia, October 26 (N. Banks), Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Allotype and 

 paratypes. Forest Hills, Boston, October 5 (H. M. Parshley); 

 Brookline (Chestnut Hill), August 31, and Auburndale, Massa- 

 chusetts, September 13; Killington Peak, Vermont, August 28 

 (C. W. Johnson) in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History and the author's collection. The males taken near 

 Boston are smaller (2.5 mm.) and the abdominal bands slightly 

 narrower. 



Platypeza anthrax Loew. 

 Plate 5, fig. 4. 

 P. elongata Banks, Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc, vol. 23, p. 215, 1915. 



Loew's description which is based on a male is somewhat mis- 

 leading, as the very narrow, reddish posterior margins on the 

 second and third abdominal segments are often obsolete or want- 

 ing. The female agrees well with the description of P. fasciata 

 Fabr. of Europe and the male and female as described and figured 



