332 



new to science, and in order that it may be recognized in the future, I 

 append the following detailed description of it : 



Tachina (Masicera) armigera u. sp. 



Male. — Front narrow, scarcely half tlie transverse diameter of the eyes, frontal 

 viLta blackish-brown, sides of front with yellowish cast, furnished with a single row 

 of bristles, the upper three or four of which are well differentiated from the lower ones, 

 the latter descending on sides of face a little below base of the third antennal joint. 

 Antennce black, second joint short, third joint narrow, of nearly an equal width, fully 

 three times as long as the second ; arista naked, thickened on its basal third. Face 

 silvery gray, lateral margins less than half as wide as the median fovea, the lateral 

 ridges with bristles extending nearly to lowermost of the frontal row, the vibrissal 

 bristle a little above the epistomal margin. Pa?/;? yellow, ^^es bare. Mesonotum 

 gray pollinose, with four well-marked shining stripes. Scutellum black, gray polli- 

 nose, furnished with six marginal bristles, the pair at the apex stout, a pair of smaller 

 ones in front of them. Aldomen elongate-ovate, black, mottled with gray, sides of 

 second segment except narrow posterior borders, and sides of third except the poste- 

 rior third, reddish, apex of last segment sometimes also reddish ; first segment with 

 a median posterior pair of bristles, second segment with three pairs, the intermedi- 

 ate ones poorly developed, third segment with two pairs and the usual posterior row, 

 fourth segment and lateral margins with the usual bristles, remaining vestiture of ab- 

 domen composed of quite long, recumbent bristles, but the abdomen can not be said 

 to be hirsute. Legs black, bristly, front tibiae with a pair of apical bristles and 

 with a siugle one on outer side below the middle, hind tibiae feebly ciliated, pulvilli 

 and ungues elongated. 7Fi?i(/s grayish hyaline, outer posterior angle of first poste- 

 rior cell rounded, destitute of a fold continuation of the fourth vein. 



Female. — Differs from above description of the $ only as follows : Front broad, 

 equaling transverse diameter of the eyes; crown with two additional bristles outside 

 of those in frontal row. Antennce with third joint less than three times as long as 

 the second. Abdomen grayish-black, first-segment and posterior end of the second 

 and third clearer black, sides of second and third segments concolorous with rest of 

 abdomen; dorsum of abdomen with no bristles except a posterior pair on the third 

 segment, those at apex of the last one and on the lateral margins. Length 6 to 8™™. 



Described from 2 S and 3 9 bred from Eeliothis armigera Hiib. at 

 Los Angeles, Cal., and 9 $ and 3 9 captured at the same place, three 

 pairs captured while united in coition. 



Professor Kiley, to whom I am indebted for a revision of the above 

 description, writes me as follows concerning the generic position of the 

 above species : 



This species, in the elongate antennae, with the short second joint, and the ab- 

 sence of the fold of the fourth vein, belongs more properly with Masicera, but the 

 more elongate abdomen and the differences in the width of the female and male fronts 

 are characters of the true Tachina (sens. str.). As the two genera run so closely into 

 each other it may be as well for the present to locate it with Tachina. 



