1915.] 105 



SimnJiidne, CMrononndae, or Tipulidae, as I hope to deal with these 

 families in more detail at some future time. 



1. SCIAEA BICOLOB Mg. 



This is a lar^e, conspiciiously coloured species, with black thorax and red 

 abdomen, resembling S. rufiventris Mcq. (which was recorded as British by 

 Grimshaw, in 1903), except in having yellow halteres. There is a male in the 

 British Museum collection, from Llangammarch Wells, Brecknock, 27.vii.1913 

 (Lieut.-Colonel Yerbiiry), and I have seen another from Cambridge, 25. v. 1905 

 (F. Jenkinson). 



2. — PlaSTOSCIARA. PERNITIDA Sp. 11. 



Head shining black ; eyes with a few short scattered hairs ; antennae in 

 both sexes with the joints about as long as broad, and with the hairs about as 

 long as the width of one joint ; palpi very small, and consisting in each sex of 

 two minute oval joints. Thorax black, brightly shining, with three longi- 

 tudinal lines of black hair, and patches of black hair at the sides ; scutellum 

 with eight bristly hairs, and a few smaller ones ou its posterior margin 

 Abdomen brownish, slightly shining ; in the female long and cylindrical, nearly 

 foui' times as long as the thorax ; in the male mtich shorter, the hypopygium 

 broad, its claspers short and broadly egg-shaped ; on the inner side flattened 

 and with a slight indentation near the tip ; tip with a bunch of hairs but no 

 spines. Legs brownish, tibial spurs yellow. Claws, empodium and pulvilli (or 

 lateral divisions of the empodium) as in Sciara. Wings fully developed in both 

 sexes ; El reaching costa considerably before the fork of M ; Es arising about 

 the middle of El ; tip of Es slightly nearer the apex of the wing than that of 

 M3 ; no bristles on the media or cubitus ; wing rather longer in proportion to 

 its breadth in the female than in the male. Halteres dark. 



Length : <? body, 2.2 mm., $ wing, 2.5 mm. ; $ body, 3.5-4 mm., ? wing, 

 3-3.5 mm. 



10 (^ , 14 ? , bred from larvae found feeding in a piece of rotten 

 wood on Stanmore Common, Middlesex, 3.V.1914 (K. Gr. Blair). In 

 the British Museum. 



The genus PJastosciara, which has not hitherto been recorded 

 from Britain, differs from Sciara proper in the greatly reduced palpi 

 and the nearly bare eyes ; and from Peyerimhoffia and other degenerate 

 Sciarinae in the well-developed wings. P. jyernitida differs from the 

 only other species hitherto described (P.pictiventris Kieffer) in having 

 the thorax shining black instead of brownish. 



3. — Trichonta flavicauda Lundstr. 



(Act. Soc. Fauna Fennica, 39, No. 3, p. 19). 



Two males and one female from Nethy Bridge, Inverness, June, 

 1908 (D. Sharp). The species belongs to the T. atricauda group, but 



