184 STRATIOMYID^ 



This species is closely allied to S. iridatus, but is at once distinguished 

 by the obvious cloud about the middle of the wing which envelops the 

 discal cell ; it is curious that some females taken by Colonel Yerbury at 

 Porthcawl in June 1906 have the dark blotch on the wings enlarged and 

 intensified in a similar manner to the blackening noticed on the wings of 

 three species of Beris taken at the same time. If >S'. nuheculosus is a good 

 species it is still more closely allied, and S. euprarms is apparently only 

 distinguished by its larger size and in the male by the white postocular 

 fringe ; it is however possible that S. nuheculosus is only a small dark form 

 of S. cuprarius. 



S. cuprarhis is said to be the most widely spread European species and 

 is recorded from Scandinavia to Italy and from North America; but I 

 have not found it so common as 8. iridatus, and my records only include 

 Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, 

 Warwickshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, Durham, and Glamorgan, though 

 old records included Somerset, Dumfries, and Edinburgh, and Duncan 

 quoted from Haliday " common in Ireland." It is a garden species like 

 its two close allies, but also occurs in shrubby lanes and small woods, 

 where it is fond of sitting on large leaves in the hot sunshine. My dates 

 extend from June 6 to September 29. Westwood bred this species from 

 garden mould, and Beling from decomposing heaps of rotting weeds, but 

 Bremi said he bred it from cow-dung and Dufour from ulcers in elms. 



Synonymy. — No real doubt has ever been attached to Linne's Musca cujyraria, 

 though many old writers failed to thoroughly recognise the distinctness of S. 

 iridatus. Loew's two varieties, rohiisUis and gracilis, noted in his Bemerkungen— 

 Posener (1840) are probably both S. iridatus, or at any rate his rohustus is perfectly 

 normal *S'. iridatus, while his gracilis with " Augen mit Binde " and " 2|"' " and 

 " Fliigel glasartig mit dunkelem Randmale, darunter nur wenig gebrJiunt " may apply 

 to a small form of >S'. iridatais or to the male of *S'. _flavipes ; it is quite certain that 

 they are unimportant varieties or else Loew would have mentioned them in his 

 paper on Sargiis in 1855. I possess a copy of Loew's Bemerkungen with numerous 

 MS. notes which I believe were made by Loew himself, especially as " adde j^allipes " 

 occurs in black ink against the list of species of Sargus, and no Sargus was called 

 liallipes except by Loew himself in mistake for S.flavvpes in his paper on Sargus 

 in 1855, while alongside of the notes on *S^. cuprarius is added in red ink (which 

 proves that it was written at a different time) a further note that ;S'. flavipes had 

 been mixed up by him with ^S'. cuprarius in probably his smaller variety. 



9. S. iridatus Scopoli. Legs black, with only just the knees ferrugin- 

 ous. Wings without any special dark cloud about the middle. 



A brilliantly shining blue-green fly of elongate shape. 



(^.Head considerably wider than the thorax, and when viewed from in front 

 rather wider than deep, and when viewed in profile very little deeper than 

 long. Face small, blackish, and its abundant pubescence mainly blackish but 

 pale on the lower part, and this pubescence is slightly upturned except close 

 against the eyes ; the mouth-opening reaches more than half-way up the face 

 and the facial pubescence is very slight and sliort along the narrow margins 

 until almost round the lower margin of the eye, but all the way up 

 the back of the head (which is hollowed out) there is a long outstanding 

 yellowish-white rather conspicuous ciliation (and by outstanding it is 

 meant that this ciliation points directly backward at a right angle to the 

 head) and in front of this whitish ciliation is an inconspicuous short black 

 ciliation close against the hindmargin of the eye. Frons shining green, 

 gradually diminishing in width from the vertex to the middle, where it is 

 about half as wide as at the vertex, and then gradually increasing in width 



