_Ophyra analis_ is a very common inland fly, and may be found swarming round dead sheep, or bred from pupae found under carrion lying in the bush. It is a shining blue black fly about the size of an ordinary house fly, and is lightly clothed with bristles on the sides of the thorax; it has a somewhat heart-shaped body, and clear wings. A second species, _O. nigra_, originally described by Wiedemann from China, is found in Australia, and is also recorded by Walker from the East Indies. It may be found swarming about dead sheep in summer. _Phoania personata_ might be taken for a large house fly from the regular stripes on the thorax, but it is more thickly clothed with bristles, and the abdomen has a deep metallic blue tint. I have bred numbers from larvae pupating in rotting oranges piled on the ground. _Limnophora ruficoxis_ is a somewhat smaller fly with the dorsal surface of the thorax and abdomen clothed with a dull buff pubescence; and the scutellum is smooth and shining. I have specimens from Sydney, N.S.W., and Gatton, Queensland. Family 18. Parasite Flies. TACHINIDAE. This is one of the most useful groups of flies to the agriculturist, for nearly all the members deposit their eggs upon the living larvae of other insects such as the plant-destroying cut-worms, many different moths, and the grubs of our large saw-flies, and immature grasshoppers. This is a family of considerable extent, for over 1,000 species have been described from America alone, and in Van der Wulp’s Catalogue 187 species are listed from South Asia, but very little has been done in working up the Australian species. In general appearance they are not unlike large house flies, but more bristly; the bristle of the third antennal joint is bare; the posterior cell of the wing almost or quite closed, and the large squamae cover the halteres. They attach their white eggs to the surface of the caterpillar with a gummy secretion, and it is quite common in summer time to find caterpillars thus infested, the perfect flies generally emerging from the pupal shell of their victim. The members of the Genus _Winthemia_ are rather large flies, parasitic upon the larvae of different moths; several American species are great checks upon the increase of the “Army worm” (_Leucania unipuncta_). _Winthemia lata_ measures slightly under ½ an inch in length, and is thickset in proportion; it has a silvery face, with the brownish thorax covered with short stout bristles on the sides; the abdomen is black, with the sides and outer margin of the segments blotched with dull yellow; and the whole upper surface is lightly clothed with fine bristles. I have bred this fly from our Native Silkworm Moth (_Antheroea eucalypti_), from Lewin’s Moth (_Ocinaria lewinae_), and from an undetermined hawkmoth.