224 STRATlOMYlDiE 



(1846). Walker said, "Very rare; inhabits the New Forest, Hampshire. 

 " In Mr Stephens's collection. (E.) ; " and this may well refer to a female 

 specimen lahelled " scutellata ?" which still remains (?!. Ansten, Ann. Nat. 

 Hist. (7), iii. 182) in the old Stephensian collection in the British 

 Museum with its puparium attached to it. There are four specimens 

 in the Hope Museum at Oxford, which are probably the original specimens 

 referred to by Westwood, especially as a label attached to a male says, 

 " Mr Hope in New Forest. Pupse found in dry rotten trees." Gorhani 

 said (Entom. Month. Mag., 1899, 71), "While searching for Coleoptera near 

 " Denny Lodge in the New Forest, on the 29th of June in the summer last 

 " past, I came across a number of Dipterous pupse, in very rotten wood, in 

 " a hollow stump. The tree was, I believe, oak, and the consistency of the 

 " rotten portion in the crevices of which the pupae were lying almost 

 " huddled together may be likened to that of rich wedding-cake. I 

 '•' brought home about a dozen of these pupae, and from the m there 

 " emerged on the 8th of July several flies which were unknown to me 

 " then, but which I made out from Westwood, Introd. ii, pp. 533-534 ; 

 " and figs. 127, 11 (pupa of Sargus), and 12, to be Subula {Xylomyia) 

 " macv2ata, Fab." — " There were, however, a great number of the pupae, or 

 " rather pupa cases, for the outside covering is that of the larval skin, 

 " which bursts at the end, just as figured for Sargus, the true pupa being 

 " extruded a little way. I bred eleven specimens, being all I believe that 

 " I brought home, simply keeping them in a tin. The flies continued to 

 " emerge for about a week." Austen recorded that there were some forty 

 more pupae. On June 12, 1905, Dr D. Sharp showed me the pupae in 

 abundance on similar rotten wood in the New Forest near Bank, and 1 

 bred a number of specimens from them. It is apparently common in the 

 New Forest in the larval and pupal stages, though very rarely seen in the 

 imaginal stage, and yet the bred specimens seem to be very active. 



Synonymy. — It is curious that Meigen in 1820 should have ascribed this species 

 to Fabricius (just as he did Xylaj>hagus ater), when Meigen's first description 

 appeared in 1804 and Fabricius' not until 1805. 



2. X. marginata Meigen. Thorax without any yellow markings on 

 the disc. Abdomen with narrow yellow cross-bands. Antennae about as 

 long as the head. Coxae blackish ; hind femora incrassate and serrulate 

 beneath (fig. 153). 



A rather inconspicuous fly which is very distinct from any 

 other in Britain except X. varia. 



(J. Frons separating the eyes by_ about one-tenth (or more) of the width of the 

 head at the vertex and widening rather abruptly to about one-seventh a httle 

 above the antennae, but if the frons is at the vertex as much as one-seventh 

 the width of the head its sides are parallel until this emargination ; sides of 

 the face widening below because of the rounding oil" of the eyes ■ frons black 

 but rather densely covered with glistening whitish pubescence which is most 

 conspicuous between the ocelli and the antennae, and which is not very short 

 but slopes forwards and is dense enough to almost obscure the ground colour ; 

 after the emargination and down the sides of the face there are narrow 

 glistening greyish white bare eyemargins, and the face itself is bare ; jowls 

 practically none, but the lower third of the back of the head black and 



