1908.] 9 



really distinct from, P. waltli, Fieb., the hitter having the body gla- 

 brous and the pronotum less transverse. I am indebted to Mr. E. 

 Saunders for comparing the Dawlish specimen with a continental 

 example received from M. Montandon. 



Horsell : December Utk, 1907. 



THE PUPAL AND ADULT 3TAGFS OF A FLY NEW TO BRITAIN, 

 PIPUNCULUS MELANOSTOLUS, Becker. 



BY HUGH SCOTT, B.A. (Cantab). 



While collecting in the part of Epping Forest near Chingford on 

 March 25th, 1907, I found a small dark puparium, from which emerged 

 on May 10th a male of a species of Pipunculus. Dr. Sharp, after 

 examining the fly, conclude 1 that it belongs to a species not previously 

 recorded from Britain, P. melanostolus, described by Becker (Berlin 

 Ent. Zeit., xlii, 1897, p. 40). Mr. Verrall, to whom also I am in- 

 debted for examining the fly, agrees in his opinion with Dr. Sharp. 



The chief reason for recording the species lies in the fact that, so 

 far as it has been possible to ascertain, there is no previous statement 

 whatever of the finding of the pupal stage of any Pipunculid in 

 Britain. On the whole the early stages of Pipunculidce may be said 

 to be not very widely known. The life-history of the Family has 

 been described, and several puparia figured, by Dr. E. C. L. Perkins, 

 in a Eeport of Work of the, Experiment Station of the Hawaiian 

 Sugar Planters' Association (Bulletin I, Part IV, 1905), dealing with 

 a number of Australian and Hawaiian species. 



The only memorandum which I have states that the puparium 

 was found in rotten wood. Dr. Perkins who has examined it, states 

 that it belongs to the common type of puparium of those Pipunculids 

 which pupate in the soil or under debris on its surface (at any rate 

 not exposed on the surfaces of living leaves). It is much of the same 

 type as the puparium shown in PI. VII, fig. 3, of his work referred 

 to. It is somewhat short and broad, very dark piceous, with the 

 surface dull, finely and reticulately rugulose. It is somewhat flattened 

 dorsally, the ventral surface being much more convex ; it has trans- 

 verse furrows, more marked on the dorsal, scarcely at all on the ventral, 

 surface. Dorsolaterally there is a longitudinal row of oblique impres- 

 sions ; two other longitudinal rows of somewhat marked impressions 



