10. BERIS 211 



synonyms of B. Morrisli, which was a species at that time little known to Loew • 

 as, however, that cannot be proved, they can remain where Loew put them! 

 Jaennicke in 1866 (Berl. Ent. Zeitschr., x., 234) considered B. fuscipes Meig. as only a 

 synonym of B. chalyheata and stated that Loew himself had named some of his 

 B. chalyheata as B. fmcipes Meig. _; if Loew did so, either he made a mistake or 

 Jaennicke unaccountably failed to distinguish the two species, just as he had done 

 with the males of B. davvpes and B. vallata. A male in the Hope collection at 

 Oxford was labelled '''' obscura." In Bigot's collection the only exponent of B. 

 sexclentata was a female Actina nitens, and the two males representing B. nigrijies 

 were also A. nitens. Berts nigra of Meigen was described from a British female 

 specimen sent by Dr Leach, and according to the probable type specimen at 

 Paris is almost certainly only B. chalyheata, but its head is too much mjured to make 

 certain ; its legs are too much obscured (especially the femora and hind tibiae) for it 

 to be B. Morrisii, even though the thorax is pale haired. 



6. B. Morrisii Dale. Abdomen shining blackish. Thorax and head of 

 the male with wholly yellow pubescence. Legs in both sexes almost wholly 

 pale yellow. Eyes sparsely hairy in the male, almost bare in the female. 

 Frons of the female one-fifth the width of the head. Antennse in both 

 sexes on the lower quarter of the head (fig. 144). 



A very distinct species through its brilliant colour and 

 pale legs. 



c^ . Head black ; face and frons small, the face being only one-quarter the width 

 of the head, not produced (fig. 149), and bearing long whitish yellow 

 pubescence which ceases on the very small jowls but reappears on the 

 moderately inflated lower part of the back of the head ; upper part of the 

 back of the head rather flattened but not hollowed 

 and bearing only a short inconspicuous brownish 

 pubescence ; pubescence on the absolute back of the 

 head (best seen from above) short and inconspicuous ; 

 vertex small and long, distinctly elevated at the 

 ocellar space, and bearing moderately long yellowish 

 pubescence ; frons small and narrow, but elongate, 

 shining black and comparatively bare ; proboscis 

 black at the base, but with large orange sucker- 

 flaps ; palpi small, but I think distinct and black (as 

 shown in fig. 149 lying on the sucker-flaps). Eyes 

 large, almost but not actually touching for a long- 

 space fi'om the vertex because a minute pale pub- 

 escence exists between them for a long distance, Yic.ua.—Beris Mornsn $. 

 bearing a short rather sparse dark pubescence ; x i8. 



facets large on all exce])t the upper and back parts. 



Antennae dull black, with a slight luteous tip to the second joint and with 

 . an obscurely greyish luteous patch about the middle of the underside of the 

 third joint, not so long as the head because the third joint ( = flagellum) is 

 only a little longer than the two basal joints together ; third joint incon- 

 spicuously annulated and bearing some minute projecting hairs at its tip ; 

 the eyes are so large that the antennae are placed on the lower fifth of the 

 head (in perpendicular height), or a little after the middle in the rounded 

 measurement. 



Thorax brilliantly shining bluish green or blue, moderately but by no 

 means densely punctate, and bearing moderately long pale brownish yellow or 

 sometimes light greyish fine pubescence, which is not at all dense but bears 

 underneath it a short inconspicuous more dense pale pubescence ; pleurae 

 with longer more conspicuous pale pubescence on the back part of the meso- 

 pleura^, and with shorter darker pubescence on the metapleurae, but the 

 middle part of the mesoi^leurse bare and polished. Scutellum of the same 

 colour as the thorax, but impunctate and with tangled yellowish pubescence 



