2. TABANUS 405 



coloring on the basal segment slightly broader than in the male ; side- 

 margins of the fourth, fifth, and sixth segments rather conspicuously reddish ; 

 the grey side-flecks and dorsal triangles which are conspicuous in T. hromius 

 practically absent in this species. Belly with the four basal segments 

 mainly dull yellowish red, iDut the basal part of the basal segment and 

 (obscurely) the sides of the third and fourth segments rather blackish 

 grey, and in some lights the fourth segment has a blackish ground colour ; a 

 second specimen has the middle part of the second segment of the belly rather 

 blackish. 



Legs with a few black hairs behind and about the tip of the front femora. 



Squamae distinctly darker than in T. hromius, and with almost blackish 

 margins. 



Length about 14-5 mm. 



This species has been described from a male taken at Lyndhurst in the 

 New Forest on June 23, 1895, and a female taken there on the next day, 

 but reference is made to another female which was taken in the same 

 neighborhood by Mr H. Donisthorpe at an uncertain date. The most 

 closely allied species is undoubtedly T. hromius, of which for a long time 

 I considered it only a variety, but its larger size and much more reddish 

 abdomen (and especially belly) distinguish it. T. tergestinus is also a very 

 closely allied species which agrees in size and almost in colour but has the 

 eyes of the male with the upper and front facets merely slightly and 

 inconspicuously enlarged, while some females from Kowarz's collection 

 have the palpi thinner and the third and fourth abdominal segments more 

 rufescent; T. tergestinus also has two purple-red bands across the lower 

 third of the eyes in the male and three bands in the female. 



T. Mikii has a postocular fringe of long black hairs in the male and 

 no band across the eyes in the female, but the female is so similar to that 

 of T. t&rgestinus that Egger had mixed them together when describing the 

 latter species. It is not improbable that both T. tergestinus and T. Mihii 

 may occur in the New Forest, and the bands on the eyes should be noted 

 from living specimens. 



Sipioni/my. — 1\ glaucus was described by Meigen in 1820, but as there was an 

 apparently earlier T. glai(cus of Wiedemann (1819) from Brazil Schiner altered the 

 name of Meigen's species to T. glavcescejis ; it is however impossible to be certain 

 about the dates of periodicals at that time, and as Wiedemann in 1828 deliberately 

 altered the name of his species to T. cinerarius it is obvious that he conceded priority 

 to Meigen's name, and consequently that no change was necessary in the name of 

 Meigen's species. Brauer was of opinion that Meigen's T. glaums was only a variety 

 of f. hromius, but I do not like sinking the specimens I have described to the rank 

 of a mere variety, and although they are none of them in first rate condition I prefer 

 to retain them as belonging to a distinct species ; unfortunately Brauer very seldom 

 gave the comparative distinctions of species, and in the case of T. bro7)vms, T. 

 tergestinus, and T. Mikii merely stated that the three species might easily be 

 confounded while his dichotomic table gave only unsatisfactory distinctions ; as to 

 T. glaucus, Brauer stated at one page that all the specimens under that name in 

 AVinthem's collection were males, but at another page he said that of six specimens 

 in Winthem's collection the males belonged to the pale silver-shimmering form of 

 T. hromius in which the abdomen is orange anteriorly, but the females were hardly to 

 be distinguished as even varieties of T. hramius ; he also stated on the first occasion 

 that the females of T. glaucus as distinguished by Schiner and Egger were only 

 rather rubbed specimens of T. maculicornis. Walker's T. glaucus is only T. maculi- 

 co7-nis. Pandelle apparently included both 2\ glaucus and T. Mikii under his 

 T. hromius, and his suggestion that T. Mikii is a small clear variety of T. autumiialis 

 is absurd. Villeneuve has stated that Meigen's types of T. glaucus in the Paris 

 Museum are a male 2\ hromius and a female T. tergestinus, 



