Abstract
THE family treated in the present instalment of the “Diptera Danica” is one of considerable extent, numbering 675 pateoarctic and 440 North American species, eleven being recorded as common to both1 regions. The number of species described in the present volume is 164 (Mr. E. E. Austin estimates the number of British species as approximately 215), divided into five subfamilies and twenty-seven genera. The larvas live in damp ground, under leaves, or in mud, or in decaying wood, and are believed to be carnivorous, like the perfect insects, the habits of which are very curious, as recorded on pp. 83 and 84. Sometimes the male catches an insect and presents it to the female, who sucks it during their union, and then drops it; and in other cases the male presents the female with a small dead fly enveloped in a kind of balloon of froth.
Diptera Danica. Genera and Species of Flies hitherto found in Denmark.
By W. Lundbeck. Part iii., Empididæ. Pp. 329. (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad; London: W. Wesley and Son, 1910.) Price 13s. 6d. net.
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Diptera Danica Genera and Species of Flies hitherto found in Denmark . Nature 85, 506 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/085506c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/085506c0