MiLTOGRAMMA is a genus established by Meigen to embrace 

 those Muscidae with divaricating wings and an oblique apical 

 nervure, having a hairy mouth and the 3rd joint of the an- 

 tennae elongated, linear and compressed, with a naked seta 

 at the base. 



This genus extends considerably to the South, two species 

 having been found in Egypt and Mogador. Like many of the 

 tribe to which it belongs, it appears to be parasitic, and in all 

 probability the larva of our species feeds upon, either the 

 maggot or pupa of Colletes fodiens (pi. 85). 



When we were in the Isle of Arran the middle of last Au- 

 gust, I was desirous of showing my friend Mr. Haliday the 

 habitations of the Colletes Jodiens, which swarmed there nine 

 years before, when Mr. Dale and myself visited that interesting 

 Island ; we therefore visited several spots by Brodick Bay, and 

 by searching a declivity perforated by these Bees we soon had 

 the satisfaction to capture several females and 2 or 3 males ; 

 but my attention was soon attracted by some of the Milto- 

 grammae pursuing the Bees as they flew to their holes, as an 

 CEstrus hovers about a Horse, and they reminded me of the 

 male Anthophora (folio 357), for as that Bee attends his bride, 

 so does the Miltogramma follow the Colletes like its shadow, 

 although for a very different purpose; the Anthophora waits 

 upon his mistress, inspired by love, but the Fly watches the 

 Bee, I suspect, for the purpose of depositing its egg that it 

 may be nourished in the cells of the Bee; but whether, like an 

 CEstrus, she drops her ova upon the Bee as she is entering 

 her burrow, or in the cell itself, I have not yet ascertained. 

 As it might be expected, every specimen of the Miltogramma 

 was a female, and out of many more at different times taken 

 in Hampshire, I met with only one male. 



I have taken the Miltogramma jpunctata at Black-gang 

 Chine in the Isle of Wight in June, at Ramsdown near Heron 

 Court on sandy heaths, and on sandy banks on Parley heath 

 'with Colletes fodiens, in August, and Mr. F. Walker observed 

 it in September at the Lizard Point, Cornwall. 



The Plant figured, Brassica mone7isis (the Isle of Man Cab- 

 bage), I gathered close to the spot where the flies were cap- 

 tured. 



