37 
sults, obtained under almost identical circumstances, is as yet 
an wisolved problem. 
According to an account which I received this spring 
from Mr. F. A. A. Skuse in Sydney, the invasion into Australia 
has not taken place yet. A notice published by him a few 
years ago in his ,Notes on the known dipterous fauna of 
Australia,“ (in the Trans. Australas. Assoc. for the Adv. of 
Science; Melbourne meeting, 1890) refers to a single specimen 
said to have been found in New South Wales, the identification 
of which however still requires confirmation. 
Except the silkworm and the honey-bee (1), I hardly know 
of any insect that can show an historical record equal to that 
ot Hristalis tenax, The record begins in the dusk of prehistoric 
times, and continues up to the present date. In its earliest 
days EF. tenax appears like a myth, a misunderstood and un- 
named being, praised for qualities which it never possessed, 
a theme for mythology in prose and poetry; later on, the bubble 
of its glory having burst, it gradually settles into a kind of 
commensalism with man, it obtains from him ,a local habitation 
and a name,“ it joins the Anglo-Saxon race in its immense 
colonial development, it vies with it in prodigies of fecundity, 
and at present renders hitherto unrecognized services in con- 
verting ,atrocious stuff into pure and clean living matter! (2) 
(1) I cannot refrain from imtroducing here a very interesting passage trom 
a letter of Mr. Kumagusu Minakata. He says that my comparison of the histo- 
rical record of /. tena with the honey-bee and the silk-worm may be true ,as 
far as Western records are concerned“: to him it seems that, ,as well as these 
insects, the ant, the cicada, the glow-worm and the cricket, are very early re- 
corded in the writings of the Chinese; while the one most anciently referred to 
in the history of Japan, is probably the Dragon-tly, after which the first lm- 
peror Jimmu named his empire ,the region of the Dragon-fly“, as early as 
630 B. C.“ 
(2) La plupart des larves de Diptéres, destinées 4 passer leur vie dans des 
fovers de décomposition animale ou végétale, impriment 4 ces éléments putrides 
qui leur servent de nourriture une existence vitale en les faisant passer pas les 
filisres de Vorganisme. Cette sorte de métempsycose, passez-moi le mot, épure 
Patmosphére des atomes délétéres qui la rendraient impropre 4 la respiration. 
