March, 1898.] Townsend: Diptera from the Tamaulipan Region. 51 
I that I recorded the species there from the District of Columbia, in a $ 
which I collected August 19. On page 101 of the same paper, Mr. 
Hunter says that, with the exception of Kansas records, Spilomyia 
quadrifasciata Say had not been recorded “outside of some of the ex¬ 
treme eastern States.” I have recorded it from Michigan, in my paper 
above referred to. The fact that, throughout his paper, he repeatedly 
quotes Snow’s records of species from Colorado and New Mexico, and 
entirely ignores my previous records of the same species of Colorado, 
New Mexico and Arizona, indicates that my paper was not seen by him. 
The drawing of broad statements as to distribution, without consulting 
the literature bearing on the subject gives rise to wrong impressions and 
can not be too strongly condemned; especially when it is remembered 
that my paper was a long and important contribution, on Syrphidse par¬ 
ticularly as well as other diptera, and appeared fully a year before, and 
in such a prominent medium as the Transactions of the American En¬ 
tomological Society ! 
Volucella tamaulipana, sp. nov. 
$ 9 * Length, 5 K to 8/^ mm., both sexes ranging through these sizes. 
The 9 in life is easily distinguished by having a lighter or more yellowish abdo¬ 
men and scutellum than $. This is not by any means apparent in dried specimens. 
Front and face light yellow, fa;e much produced downward to a blunt point; face and 
front white-pilose, vertex with black hair, cheeks with heavy shining black or brown 
stripes; facial stripe much less distinct, fuscous, brown at oval margin. Face very 
gently concave above the slight tubercle. Frontal vitta moderately broad, shining 
brown, lighter arteriorly. Frontal triangle yellow, tinged with fuscous along middle, 
hairs somewhat brownish. Antenme about half as long as face, reddish-yellow ; third 
joint subequilateral, a little bulged on edges of basal portion, and slightly narrowed 
on apical portion ; arista hardly as long as antennae, thinly long hairy above, and 
to more thickly short hairy below. Thorax greenish-black, thickly clothed with shoit 
ye ow hair, with a patch of black hair on posterior central portion of disk next the 
<yellow prescutellar spot, whole of scutellum and larger or smaller prescutellar 
spot bright yellow, the wide lateral margins of thorax same except a fuscous 
space immediately above base of wings. A yellow spot on pleurre directly be¬ 
low humeri, and a fuscous pale area in front of wing bases. Hair of scutellum 
bright yellow on anterior half or less, abruptly black on posterior half. Some longer 
weak bristles or hairs on edge of scutellum. Metanotum shining black, with an 
arcuate line of yellow next scutellum, and a fuscous are* between. Disk of scutellum, 
viewed from above, appears broadly fuscous Abdomen of a general yellowish brown ; 
ret segment blackish in middle, and black on narrow hind border ; second segment 
wholly light yellow, except the sinuate hind margin blackish or brown, or with a 
med laQ line of the brownish separating the elongate lateral yellow markings. 
ird segment with the same yellow markings quite distinct on anterior half 
of segment in some specimens, more or less distinctly divided by a median vitta, 
