106 
Psyche 
[September 
A NEW GENUS OF PHORID^E FROM PERU 1 
By Charles T. Brues. 
On a recent visit to the United States National Museum 
in Washington, Dr. J. M. Aldrich showed me a very extraor- 
dinary phorid fly which had been received in a collection of 
Diptera obtained by R. C. Shannon at Iquitos, Peru. The 
individual in question bears near the base of the wing a 
conspicuous, button-like, heavily chitinized swelling which 
projects strongly above both the upper and lower surfaces 
of the wing membrane between the base of the third and 
fifth wing veins. As the specimen evidently represents an 
undescribed form Dr. Aldrich very kindly loaned it to me 
for more detailed examination. On account of certain other 
structural characters it must, I think, be regarded as the 
type of a new genus, Phymatopterella, described on a later 
page. 
As the swelling on the wing is a very unusual type of 
structure I have been tempted to compare it with certain 
other, possibly similar, wing structures, known to occur in 
other insects. In the family Phoridse it appears to be 
unique so far as is known. Several species, notably of the 
genus Megaselia from various parts of the world have the 
costal vein moderately or more rarely excessively swollen 
or thickened, but such developments represent strictly 
hypertrophy of the vein in question. 
In one genus, Pelidnophora Borgmeier, the wing is said to 
bear an oval dark spot between the fifth and sixth veins. 
As Borgmeier 2 does not mention this further, I am led to 
believe that this spot is simply a pigmented area or perhaps 
a structure like that described by Malloch in Megaselia con- 
glomerata Malloch 3 . The latter species has a brown patch 
at the tip of the wing between the fourth and fifth veins, 
1 From the Entomological Laboratory of Harvard University. 
2 Vozes de Petropolis, Vol. 17, p. 741 (1923). 
3 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. 43, p. 445 (1912). 
