1. H^MATOPOTA 345 



Wings (fig. 226) as in tlie male. Squamae light grey, with rather broad 

 brown margins and an inconspicuous pale marginal tuft on the alar pair near 



Fio. 226. — Hwmatojjota italica 9 • X 8- 



the angle. Halteres whitish yellow, with the inner and outer part of the 

 knob blackish except at the tip. 



Length about 10-5 mm. but varying from 9-5 mm. to 11-5 mm. 



This species is similar to the others, but the male may be distinguished 

 from II. pluvialis by the pale pubescence at the back of the vertex, and 

 the female from the other species by the elongate (not in the least ovate) 

 entirely dull basal joint of the antennte ; the male may be distinguished 

 from H. crassicornis by the very different tint of the wing-coloring. Other 

 distinguishing characters lie in the usually larger size, more elongate shape, 

 usually ferruginous femora and more conspicuously black-haired frons of 

 the female, and the more washed-out wing-markings. 



It varies in the female in having the basal segment of the third joint 

 of the antennae almost entirely dull blackish brown, the spots and 

 pubescence on the abdomen ranging in colour from the normal brownish 

 yellow to occasionally pale ashy grey, and the spots also varying in dis- 

 tinctness though never occurring on the basal segment and only very 

 faintly on the second segment, and the femora ranging from light greyish 

 black to obscure luteous, while the amount of luteous colour or the 

 intensity of the dark bands on the tibiae may vary ; the basal joint of the 

 antennse is ordinarily very regular in length, but is occasionally shorter 

 but even then not in the least ovate. 



ff. italica has hitherto been but little known as a British insect; 

 Curtis figured it in 1834 from some females taken at " Mersey-Isle, Essex," 

 to which locaHty Duncan in 1837 added the word "Southend"; about 

 1870 the late Mr Howard Vaughan gave me a female from the same 

 neighborhood; Mr Chawner recorded it from Matley Bog in the New 

 Forest, and Miss Kicardo took one at Netley, Hants, on July 22, 1893. 

 The Mersey-Isle record caused Colonel Yerbury to go in search of it at 

 Walton-on-N"aze in Essex in August 1907, and he found it not at all un- 

 common there though he only succeeded in obtaining two males (the first 

 of that sex known as British and from which my description has been 

 taken) ; towards the end of that month I joined him at Woodbridge in 

 Suffolk and up to August 31st the females were not uncommon there in 

 company with H. pli/vialis, while one female occurred at Aldeburgh as 

 late as September 19. Newman (Entomologist, iv., 215, 1869) recorded 

 " Hmnalopota lonf/icornis, a new British Dipteron,"' and stated that there 

 were " two specimens in the Entomological Club cabinet — one from the 

 " neighbourhood of Balcombe, in Sussex ; the other from the Kent coast." 

 If correctly identified it occurs from North Europe to Italy. 



