10. BERIS 203 



B. clavipes is far less common than B. vallata, and I have records from 

 only Dorset (Sherborne), Sussex (Three Bridges), Kent (Daren th), Suffolk 

 (common according to Mr C. Morley), Oxford (Hope Museum), Leicester 

 (Blaby), Hereford (several localities), Glamorgan (Porthcawl), Merioneth 

 (Dolgelly), and Brecknock (Hay), and then after a very long interval at 

 Tongue, on the North Sea; Haliday recorded it from Holywood in Co. 

 Down. My dates extend from May 12 to June 18, which indicate that it 

 is a rather earlier species than B. vallata. It is recorded from middle 

 Sweden down to Italy. 



Synonymy. — Tlie nomenclature of these two species {B. vallata and B. davvpes) 

 may be considered as settled, because no proof is possible that it is wrong ; it is 

 obvious that Forster described his Musca vallata from the female of B. vallata, but 

 it must remain uncertain what species Linne had before him when he described his 

 M. clavipes. Haliday (Stett. Ent. Zeit., xii., 138) stated that a specimen named M. 

 clavipes in the Linnean collection in the British Museum was '''' Beris clavijjes, 

 "Mg. (J," and another specimen with a printed label "3 clavipes'" was a fragment of 

 the same species. 



3. B. geniculata Curtis. Abdomen all blackish. Legs black with the 

 knees yellowish. Antennse moderately long. 



The blackest and largest species in the genus Beris, though 

 Actina nitens is still more black. 



$ . Head black ; f rons rather large, shining black with a depressed middle 

 channel down the upper part, and bearing a long and rather dense black (or 

 in some lights brownish) pubescence similar to that on the face ; face more 

 than half the height of the head, slightly produced and arched, barely more 

 than one-third the width of the head at its lowest and widest part, and 

 bearing long rather dense black or brownish -black pubescence ; jowls (includ- 

 ing the lower part of the back of the head) rather large and bearing long 

 black and greyish pubescence ; upper i^art of the back of the head slightly 

 hollowed behind the eyes and showing a row of short dense black bristles 

 against the eyes on the top part, while the pubescence on the actual back of 

 the head (as seen from above) is dense, black, and long, being longer than in 

 B. chalyheata ; vertex elevated and bearing long black pubescence. Proboscis 

 black at the base, but the large sucker-flaps orange ; palpi minute, black. 

 Eyes touching for a rather long space (about fifteen facets) and densely 

 clothed on all the front part with long brownisii-black pubescence, but on the 

 upper, lower, and hind margins with only very short sparse hairs ; facets on 

 the ui^iDcr half conspicuously larger than those on the lower part but the 

 change is only gradual. Antennae dull black, nearly as long as the head and 

 placed a little more than half-way down the head; two basal joints nearly 

 equal in length and bearing short black bristles ; third joint nearly twice as 

 long as the two basal joints together, grey on the inside about the middle, 

 and tapering after about the third annulation rather sharply to a point or 

 almost so, and the point itself bearing two or three tiny bristles. 



Thorax and scutellum bright shining green, not in the least blackish, 

 rather abundantly punctate on the front part, and the imnctuation does not 

 diminish much until quite on the hindmargin of the thorax, though the 

 scutellum is practically impunctate ; disc of the thorax clothed with rather 

 dense black or rusty black pubescence, which is comiiosed of numerous short 

 hairs and almost as many long hairs, but the long hairs do not extend quite 

 to the front part ; pleurae with dull brownish -yellow pubescence, which is 

 long and conspicuous on the hind part of the mesopleurse, but the middle 

 part of the mesopleurte is bare and polished as usual. Scutellum mainly with 

 only a few long black or rusty liairs (similar to the long hairs on the thorax), 

 but these hairs extend rather more numerously right up the spines to their 

 tips ; spines usually six (though Loew says sometimes eight), perhaps rather 



