Proceedings of the United States National Museum
THE DIPTEROUS GENUS SYMPHOROMYIA IN NORTH AMERICA. By John Merton Aldrich, Assistant, Cereal and Forage Insect Investigations, Bureau of Entomology. The genus Symphoromyia was established by Frauenfeld in 1867.* Only one species is mentioned, Atherix melaena Meigen, which thus becomes the undoubted type of the genus. Happily, there is no nomenclatural dispute whatever about the correct application of the name, and it has never been used in any other sense than the origi- nal one. The loiown species are confined to Europe and North America. The first North American species were mentioned by Osten Sacken in his Western Diptera, 1877, in a paragraph which is well worth quoting for its historic interest: Symphoromyia, ep. —Half a dozen species, which I took in Marin and Sonoma Coun- ties in April and May, and about Webber Lake in July, all have the anal cell open and therefore belong to the genus Symphoromyia Frauenfeld (Ptiolina Schiner, not Zetterstedt). California seems to be much richer in this group than Em'ope or the Atlantic States of North America; but as these species resemble each other very closely, and as both sexes often differ in coloring, I deem it more prudent not to attempt to describe them. The female of one of these species which I observed near Webber Lake stings quite painfully and draws blood like a Tabanus. I am not aware of the fact ever having been noticed before concerning any species of Leptidae (p. 244). The next occurrence of the genus in North American literature was when Williston described two species, pachyceras and plagens.^ This was closely followed by an article by Bigot,^ in which he described six species from North America, latipalpis, pidicornis, trivittata, ful- vipes, atripes, and comata.
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