222 [September, 



Zett., which species appears to be attached to conifers. Mr. Lamb 

 found only one specimen, and it is a male. 



During the present summer Mr. Lamb' and my daughter, M. A. 

 Sharp, have found in the New Forest a large Pacliygaster, which I 

 make out to be P. tarsalis, Zett. Though the name of this species 

 appears in Mr. Verrall's list, little or nothing seems to be known 

 about it as a British species. The wings have a dark cloud near the 

 base, as in P. afer. We found three examples, and I suppose they 

 represent the two sexes. If so, it is a Neopacliyg aster. Mr. Yerrall, 

 however, thinks they are all females ; and he has in his foreign col- 

 lection examples which are probably males of this species, and have 

 the eyes confluent in front. I am, however, not quite satisfied as to 

 this, and hope to obtain better evidence next year. 



Two years ago Mr. Austen, in this Magazine (Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 xxxvii, p. 241) established the new genus Ne op a chyg aster, 'tor a species 

 I discovered in the New Forest, and which was determined by Mr. 

 Austen to be P. meromelas, Duf. In his new list of British Diptera, 

 Mr. Verrall does not accept P. meromelas as the name of the species 

 for which Mr. Austen founded Neoipnchygaster, but calls the insect 

 P. orhitalis, Wahlb. Locw gives the two names as synonymical, 

 adopting P. merovielas as prior. I presume Mr. Verrall has evidence 

 that leads him to treat Loew's synonymy as incorrect, and that he 

 will present it in the forthcoming volume of his " British Flies." Dr. 

 Jenkinson found N. orhitaUs this year near Brockenhurst. 

 Cambridge : July 2Qth, 1903. 



VERRALLIA AUCTA AND ITS HOST. 

 BY F. JENKINSON, M.A., LL.D. 



I suppose the oviposition of PipuncuJklcE has been recorded 

 somewhere, but I have not seen it described ; although the form of 

 the ovipositor and the strong legs and claws (sometimes at least 

 larger in the female) enable us to guess what must take place. 

 Noticing V. aucta to be common in my garden on the morning of 

 July 5th, I determined to watch them as they busily beat over every 

 inch of the herbage. I sometimes had four in view at one time. 

 Frog-hoppers being as scarce as Verrallia was common (perhaps these 

 facts are not entirely unconnected with each other), I occasionally 

 caught one and put it in the Verrallia's path, with complete success. 

 As soon as a Verrallia saw a frog-hopper it poised itself in the air 

 (like a kestrel hovering, but with a certain intensity perceptible in its 



