OSTEN SACKEN ON WESTERN DIPTERA, 283 



The specimen has been for many years in my collection, labeled " Cali- 

 fornia". I do not remember from whom I received it, but it may have 

 come with a small lot of insects from Lower California. 



Apiocera. 



A genns of doubtful systematic position : refused admittance to the 

 Midaidce by Dr. Gerstaecker, the last monographer of the family ; excluded 

 by Dr. Loew from the Asilidce ; not less remarkable for its geographi- 

 cal distribution. 



Westwood (Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., 1835 ; Arcana Entomologica, 

 vol. i) introduced it for three species from Australia, and referred it, 

 with a doubt, to the Midaidce. 



Macquart (Dipt. Exot., 2e suppl., 49, tab. ii, f. 1, 1847) introduced 

 the same form from Yan Diemen's Land, under the name of Pomacera 

 establishing a separate family, Pomaceridce, for it. 



Philippi ;(Verh. zool.-bot. Ges., 1865, 702, tab. 25, f. 26) established 

 the genus Anypenus for the same form, discovered in Chili; he places 

 it among the Asilidce, and describes two species. 



I possess a species from California which is undoubtedly an Apiocera. 

 It has the same large, broad, spoon -shaped palpi; a short, strongly 

 retreating face ; a proboscis with very large lips ; antennae with a short, 

 somewhat pear-shaped terminal joint, bearing a small style; the vena- 

 tion is exactly like that represented by Philippi in the above-quoted 

 figure; the character of the coloring is the same as that of all the pre- 

 viously described species. 



Apiocera haruspex n. sp., $. — Blackish-gray; abdomen black, with 

 white cross-bands; three segments preceding the black hypopygium 

 are white. Length 20 mm , 



Face and palpi white, beset with white pile ; antennae black, basal 

 Joint beset with long white pile; front white; ocellar tubercle blackish. 

 ! Thorax grayish-black above ; humeral callosities white ; a whitish longi- 

 tudinal line and two lateral lines on the dorsum ; the latter are expanded 

 | anteriorly into broad white triangles; two other white lines, curved 

 I anteriorly, between these lateral lines and the pleurae; pleurae grayish - 

 j white. Abdomen, first segment whitish on the sides, brownish in the 

 middle, and with a fringe of black pile posteriorly ; anterior margin of 

 the second segment with a white cross-band, emarginate in the middle, 

 expanding laterally ; posterior margin with two large contiguous white 

 triangles, prolonged laterally so as to coalesce on the lateral margin 

 with the anterior cross-band; the intermediate region of the segment 

 is deep black, opaque ; third segment black, opaque, with a white cross- 

 band on the anterior margin, emarginate in the middle ; fourth segment 

 black, with a vestige of a narrow white margin anteriorly, concealed 

 under the preceding segment; the three following segments white; 

 ' hypopygium black, large, oblong, resembling that of an Erax. Venter 

 white. Legs grayish, with black spines; tibiae and tarsi reddish-brown. 

 7 HB 



