AUSTRALIAN BLOOD SUCKING FLIES. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW AUSTRALIAN BLOOD- 

 SUCKING FLIES BELONGING TO THE 

 FAMILY LEPTID^. 



By Eustace W. Ferguson, m.b., ch.M. 

 (From the Microbiological Laboratory, Department of Public 



Health.) 



(Communicated by Dr. J. B. Clbland.) 

 [With Plate XXVI.] 



[Read before the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, August 4, 1915,'] 



The existence of blood- sucking Leptid flies in Australia 

 was first discovered by Dr. Cleland in June, 1911, on a 

 branch of Middle Harbour, Sydney. Specimens taken on 

 this occasion were forwarded to Mr. E. E. Austen of the 

 British Museum, who found that they belonged to the 

 Leptidse and represented two (apparently) undescribed 

 species. Subsequently specimens were obtained from 

 Helensburgh, (Dr. Cox), and also from the Hawkesbury 

 River. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few from 

 the Hawkesbury River the laboratory collection does not 

 now contain any of these specimens. 



In 1914, Arthur White in his paper on the Diptera- 

 Brachycera of Tasmania, described a species from Freycinet 

 Peninsula, Tasmania, and named the genus Spaniopsis. 

 His species — S. tabaniformis White, is however, different 

 from any we have met in New South Wales. 



In March, 1915, 1 obtained specimens of one species from 

 the Hawkesbury River, on the heights surrounding the 

 dam on the mainland from which the water supply of 

 Milson and Rabbit Islands is derived. This proved to be 

 the same as the specimens already in the collection from 



