OSTEN SACKEN ON WESTERN ])IPTERA. 225 



species of that family. Many species occur in the countries round the 

 Mediterranean. Dr. Philippi enumerates not less than twenty one 

 species from Chili (!). 



Hirmoneura CLAUSA n. sp. — Body clothed with pale yellowish-gray 

 hair; antenna and feet reddish; eyes bare; second submarginal and 

 second posterior cells closed and petiolate at the distal end. Long. 

 corp. 9-10 mm . 



Face densely covered with pale yellowish hair, through which a short, 

 reddish proboscis is hardly visible ; antennae reddish ; front clothed 

 with the same pale yellowish hair; vertex black, with a tuft of black 

 hair ; behind it, on the occiput, a tuft of yellow hair. Eyes bare. 

 Thorax clothed with the same pale yellowish hair, especially dense on 

 the pleurae and pectus ; on the dorsum, the black ground-color is visible ; 

 the posterior corners, as well as the hind margin of the scutellum, are 

 reddish-brown. Abdomen black, clothed with the same pale yellowish 

 hair. Halteres reddish. Legs brownish-red ; femora clothed with pale 

 yellowish, erect pile, especially on their proximal half. Wings hyaline ; 

 the veins near the costa reddish-brown ; the second submarginal cell is 

 closed, eye-like, long-petiolate at the distal end; the second posterior 

 cell (that is, the cell which is separated from the second submarginal by 

 a single cell, the first posterior, which opens at the apex of the wing) 

 is also closed, with a petiole at the distal end half as long as the petiole 

 of the second submarginal ; the third posterior cell is closed (as usual in 

 this genus). 



Hab. — Dallas, Texas (Boll). A single specimen, apparently a female. 



The venation of this species is like that of H. brevirostris Macquart 

 (Dipt. Exot, suppl., i, tab. 20, f. 1), except that the second posterior cell 

 is closed, and the petiole of the second submarginal is longer than rep- 

 resented on the figure. 



Family BOMBYLTD.E. 



The Bombylidce are perhaps the most characteristic and one of the 

 most abundantly represented families of Diptera in the western region, 

 including California. Nevertheless, the results obtained by me in work- 

 ing up this family are not at all in proportion to the number of species col - 

 lected. I have been very much hampered, on the one hand, by the unsat- 

 isfactory condition of the systematic distribution of the Bombylidce in gen- 

 eral ; on the other, by the insufficiency of my eastern material and the 

 impossibility of identifying the large number of existing descriptions of 

 eastern species. 



For fear of increasing the difficulties of the future student, I have 

 confined myself to the description only of the more striking forms; and, 

 at the same time, in order to facilitate his task, I have taken advantage 

 of this opportunity for reviewing all that has been hitherto done for 

 North American Bombylidce. A list of all the described species from 



