7. SARGUS 175 



character that Loew separated off his genus Chrysonotus, but the ocelli 

 altogether are placed further down the frons than in S. hipunctatus, so 

 that there is in S. jlavipes and its allies a longer elevated vertical space 

 than in S. hipundatiis, and it appears to me that it is uj^on this very faint 

 character that the existence of the genus Chrysonohis exists, unless S. 

 jlavipes and its allies are united generically with S. Mpunctatus and 

 separated from >S^. cuprarius and its allies by the absence of any outstand- 

 ing postocular fringe. The male is easily distinguished from >S'. hipunctatus 

 and S. albibarhis ? by its considerably black legs. 



>S^ Jlavipes is not so common as ;S'. iridatus and aS'. cuprai'iiis, but I have 

 records from numerous localities extending from Cornwall (Boscastle) up 

 to Sutherland and across England from Barmouth to Beccles, while 

 Colonel Yerbury has found it very common in Ireland at Caragh Lake, 

 and at Kenmare and Valentia Island. My dates show it to be a rather 

 late species as they extend from July 6 to September 22. I have generally 

 taken it in or near large woods, but Colonel Yerbury noticed the females 

 congregating on cow-dung (in which the larvae probably feed), while 

 the males sat near on the leaves of lime, sycamore, aspen, etc. It is re- 

 corded from Northern and Middle Europe. 



Synonymy. — There can be no doubt about this being the species described by 

 Zetterstedt as S.flavijjes of Meigen (although Meigen's description is insufficient to 

 distinguish it) and consequently I follow Loew (1855) in continuing to use that 

 name. Meigen (1822) wrote "pedibus flavis " and "Beine gelb, die Sclienkel 

 "bisweilen etwas braunlich," and in 1830, when adding to his description from 

 apparently plenty of material, he said nothing about the legs ; it is, however, almost 

 certain that he must have known so common a species, and the one female left in 

 his collection in Paris belongs to it. 



Fallen's description is of no distinctive value so far as the male is concerned, but 

 Zetterstedt m 1842 wrote " femoribus tibiarumque apice in $ nigricantibus " and 

 "pedibus nigris, geniculis omnibus late, tarsisque posterioribus basi, tibiisque 

 " posticis, flavis," and he hinted at S. ccerideicollis Meig. being a synonym, but he 

 said nothing about any dark smudge behind the front femora of the female until 

 1849. Walker probably had the true species before him, though he said of the 

 female, ''''pedibus fidvis, tihiis anticis fusco-chwtis " and "Legs tawny : a black bamJ 

 " on each femur" which are characters that apply to no known species. As there is 

 so much uncertainty about the yellow-legged European species I add a few notes on 

 them. 



S. albibarbus Loew was described from one (probable) female, which has quite 

 yellow legs except for a dark " wisch " or band about the middle of the hind femora, 

 and which_ has the frons brown between the antennae and the white spots, and the 

 two basal joints of the antennse yellowish brown ; I possess a specimen which was 

 in Kowarz's collection (with no locality but with a tiny pink label attached), and 

 it agrees so exactly with Loew's description even to the uncertainty of the sex 

 that I cannot \\q\y> suspecting it to be the original specimen from which Loew 

 described his species ; it has the frons at the vertex, about one-tenth the width 

 of the head and narrowed to less than one-third as much at the front ocellus and 

 onwards for a long way, and hardly wider at the antennae than at the vertex ; the 

 pubescence on the frons is all orange and comparatively short from the occiput 

 to the front ocellus, but thence on the very narrow part of the frons there is only 

 a single line of black hairs on each side for about half-way to the antennie, after 

 which the ]iubescence is in more than a single line and is brown and hardly 

 upturned • the pubescence on the face is pale brown and not upturned except for 

 some black hairs close under the antennae, and the pubescence on the back of the 

 head is pale brown ; the specimen has any genitalia withdrawn, but I think I can 

 trace some lamellae which look like those of a female ; tlie frons is narrower about 

 the middle than I have seen in any other Sargus, and there is a slight dark patch 

 about the middle of the front of the front femora. 



The other specimen in Kowarz's collection under the name of S. Jlavipes may be 



