1903.] 249 



invaluable work to be Plwrtica variefjata, Fall. For several days 

 we were unable to find another example, but about ten days later 

 Mr. Lamb captured a second specimen several miles from the spot 

 where the first example was discovered. Both individuals were found 

 about old wood, and the species probably feeds on some fungus con- 

 nected therewith. 



P. variegata 'is large for a Drosophilid, and is easily recognised 

 by the complexly mottled legs ; these parts are of the pale tint so 

 usual in Drosophilid (p, but in addition to this are greatly spotted with 

 dark brown, somewhat after the same fashion as the variegate legs of 

 Milichia ornatn. The abdomen is banded with dark colour as it is in 

 many other Drosophilido', but in P. variegata the dark marks are very 

 large. 



Mr. Collin has suggested to me that the correct uame of this 

 species will probably prove to be Amiota variegata. He considers the 

 two names to be synonymous, and Amiota to have two years' priority. 

 I have, however, failed as yet to find any description of Amiota. 

 Phortica was established by Schiner in 1864. Amiota is given in 

 Scudder's and in Marschall's Nomenclators as due to Loew in 1862. 

 Marschall's entry is a curious one, viz., ^'Amiota, Loew, Berl. ent. 

 Zeitschr., vi, 229, 1862, = ? DrosopMIa.'' In the volume thus indi- 

 cated Loew describes two new North American species of Amiota, 

 but makes no remark whatever about the genus. We may therefore 

 suppose that the genus was either established previously to this, or 

 that he forgot to deal with the generic characters. Very likely Mr. 

 Collin, who has so extensive a knowledge of our Acalyptrate Muscidce 

 may before long be able to clear up this nomenclatorial point. 



In Williston's work on North American Diptera there is no 

 mention of the genus Amiota, but Phortica is recognised as a North 

 American genus. 



Cambridge : August 29</*, 1903. 



ON SOME COLEOPTERA FROM THE FAROE ISLANDS. 

 BY D. SHARP, M.A., M.B., F.R.S. 



In the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, 1901, p. 254, 1 gave an 

 account of a small collection of beetles made by Mr. Nelson Annan- 

 dale in this remote group of small islands. This was followed by a 

 note from Dr. O. M. Keuter, of Helsingfors {op. cit., 1902, p. 3), in 



