8. SPANIA 319 



short depressed sparse greyish black pubescence. Scutellum with distinct 

 marginal hairs. 



Abdomen shining black, less pilose and more tapering. 



Wings less infuscated ; third veinlet from the discal cell abbreviated or 

 entire. 



Length about 2 mm. 



This species varies a great deal in size and venation, and no specific 

 characters dependent thereon can be trusted in either this or the allied 

 genus Ptiolina ; the variations of the venation are very frequently quite 

 different in the two wings of a specimen, and even the abbreviated third 

 veinlet from the discal cell does not afford a trustworthy character in 

 either sex, as I know it is sometimes complete in the male while in the 

 three females I have seen it is abbreviated in two but complete in the 

 other ; nevertheless as I have not seen a Ptiolina with this veinlet 

 abbreviated it may be a useful distinctive character when present. It 

 also varies in the intensity of coloring on the face, frons, and legs, 

 according to the maturity of the specimens. As there is no other known 

 European species of this genus it only requires comparison with species of 

 Ptiolina, and they all differ from it in the shape of the third joint of the 

 antennae. 



S. nigra has been insufficiently distinguished not only in Britain but 

 also in Europe, and the females seem to be very rare. The species is not 

 uncommon in Scotland as I have seen numerous male specimens from 

 Tongue, The Mound, Nethy Bridge, Gairloch (Koss), and Arran, and 

 females from The Mound, and St Fillans in Perthshire; in England it 

 may have been overlooked as my only record is from Tarrington in 

 Herefordshire where Colonel Yerbury found the males common on Oornus 

 sanguinea, and he has taken it at Porthcawl in South Wales. Haliday 

 recorded it as occurring " In moist places of open groves, hovering about 

 " and alighting on leaves of evergreens. North of Ireland and Wicklow." 

 My dates only extend from May 20 to June 28. It is recorded from 

 Sweden to Silesia, and it was probably in France that Abbe Kieffer (Wien. 

 ent. Zeit., xv., 247, 1896) found a larva in the thallus of Pellia Neesiana. 



Synonymy. — No doul:)t can arise about this species being the true Sjxinia nigra. 

 of Meigen (I'SSO), but Strobl contended (Wien. ent. Zeit., xi., 124, 1892) that it was 

 the same as Atherix grisea Meigen (1820) and that the older name must stand ; Mik 

 however (Wien. ent. Zeit., xv., 124, 1896) maintained that Meigen's A, grisea must be 

 a Symphoromyia or Chrysopila, and just about the same time Griffini found what is 

 apparently the true Symphoromyia grisea. At the same time Strobl contended that 

 Pt. nitida Whlbg. was only a dark over-matured form of *S'. nigra, which is very 

 improbable because Wahlberg described both sexes of Pt. nitida at the same time as he 

 described the two sexes of Sp. nigra, and at the same time he distinguished the two 

 genera ; beyond that Wahlberg was a writer who could be trusted to be almost always 

 accurate in his conclusions. Strobl's further conclusions that Pt. Wodzickii Frauenf., 

 Pt. lapddaria Now. { — Eurytion paradoxus Jaennicke), and Pt. nigripes Zett. were 

 also synonyms show that at that time Strobl did not know the true Spania nigra at 

 all but that he had (as he subsequently admitted) a true Ptiolina before him of 

 which Pt. Wodzickii, Pt. lapidaria, and Eurytion p>aradoxus were probable synonyms; 

 Pt. nigripes is also probably a true Ptiolina, but I have dealt with many of these 

 species under the genus Ptiolina. A therix unicoloy- Curt, must be a Symphoromyia. 



