Book excerpt: Excerpt from Manual of the Families and Genera of North American Diptera Eight years ago the author of the present work published a small volume in which he attempted to tabulate the families and more important genera of the diptera of the United States. From the use that has been made of that work by entomological students, he has been encouraged to believe that the labor of its preparation was not in vain. The extraordinary activity in the investigation of our dipterological fauna within the past few years has, however, largely destroyed its usefulness, and it is hoped that this new edition, or rather this new work, will prove as serviceable as has been the former one. In the present work there has been an attempt to include all the genera now known from north of South America. While the Central and West Indian faunas are preeminently of the South American type, there are doubtless many forms occurring in the southern states that are at present known only from more southern regions. In the preparation of the work the author has been aided by the examination, so far as he was able, of extensive collections from the West Indies and Central America submitted to him for study by Dr. D. Sharp of Cambridge, England, and Messrs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."