he Stratiomyidae or soldier flies are represented in America north of Mexico by approximately 237 species distributed through 37 genera. Prior to this study, larvae have been described for only 21 species representmg 15 genera. In addition to the lack of adequate descriptions and keys, classification has seldom been attempted and a phylogenetic treatment of the larvae has never been presented.The present study has been undertaken with several goals in mind:(1) to rear and describe as many species as possible; (2)

Responses of laboratory-culturedand wild Dams oleae flies to small sticky-coated rectangles hung in olive or apricot trees showed that yellow rectangles captured slightly to many more flies than any others tested, including: light, medium, and dark oranges, greens and grays; red; blue; black, white; aluminum foil; slight, medium, or strong tints of yellow; clear Plexiglas; and the top or bottom surface of olive leaves glued to rectangles. We conclude (1) that the flies' response to yellow is positive attraction and primarily to the hue and not the intensity of yellow, and (2) that the flies are particularly attracted toward those yellowish hues embodying the combined properties of highest amount of light reflectance between 520-580 nm (the area of the insect visible spectrum where green leaves reflect their peak energy) and little reflectance below 520 nm.The percentage of released lab flies recaptured on the rectangles was smaller than that of released wild flies. Moreover, lab flies were consistently less adept at distinguishing yellow from red than were wild flies. We have detected an eye color difference between wild and lab flies and suspect a deficiency or imbalance of nutrients or conditions in the artificial larval diet as being the cause of the difference in eye color and hue discrimination ability.

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1. A sampling plan was developed fix the immature stages of D.oleae (Gmel.) by analysing data from samples of infested fruits taken during the years 1973, 1974 and 1975. 2. The number of samples required to attain a certain precision is largely a function of density, so that the level of sampling can be determined approximately for a given density of immature stages.3. Partial life tables were constructed for the main developmental periods of the successive generations of D.oleae. For most of the year the number of eggs laid, rather than mortality, determined the size of the resulting population of pupae. 4.In September mortality of the third larval instar is high, mainly due to parasitism and this decreases considerably the number of pupae produced during this period.