3. CHRYSOPS 439 



colour (including almost all the face), and by the concave rather than 

 convex outer margin of the blackened middle cross-band on the wings, 

 while the upper basal cell is more extensively darkened and the first 

 posterior cell in the female less darkened than in the three other British 

 species; it is also rather smaller and narrower than the three other 

 species. 



C. sepulcrcdis is probably not uncommon in marshy valleys in the 

 great Dorsetshire commons, but it was not recognised until Mr E. E. 

 Austen recorded the capture of two males by Capt. Savile Eeid at 

 Studland Heath in August 8, 1895. A visit to Dorset in August 1904 

 caused Mr J. E. Collin to capture one female on a large wet space on 

 Parley Heath, and an examhiation of Eev. 0. Pickard Cambridge's 

 collection produced one male and five females which he had casually 

 taken near Bloxworth ; a visit to Studland in company with Colonel 

 Yerbury in 1906 led to the capture of one male and seven females in a 

 shallow boggy valley between August 20 and September 4, the male being 

 taken on the last date. An examination of the late Mr C. AV. Dale's 

 collection showed a male and two females labelled " Studland July, 1880," 

 but he had probably overlooked their distinctness until after Mr Austen's 

 record. Six females taken by Mr Wni. Evans in a marshy spot at 

 Aberfoyle in Perthshire on June 30, 1905, have been specially mentioned 

 above, and he has informed me that they were not uncommon on that day 

 but that he only took them because they were continually setthng upon 

 him. It is very probable that the so-called " black variety" of G. ccecutiens 

 mentioned by Duncan in 1837 as having occurred in Sutherlandshire and 

 in the South of Scotland may refer to this species. It ii\ recorded from 

 North and Central Europe, but Osten Sacken justifiably refused to 

 accept Kirby's identification of it from Kortb America. 



Synonymy.. — The only possible doubt about the identification of this species 

 lies with the extreme North European C. viaura Siebke ; Siebke described his 

 species as similar to C. sepulcrcdis in size and form but as haying entirely 

 black pubescence, from which it would appear that the Aberfoyle specimens might 

 represent his idea of C. sepulcralis and the Studland (or at any rate the Livonian) 

 specimens his idea of C. manra, but as against that the Aberfoyle and Studland 

 specimens are hardly alike in size and form. It is almost certain that the male 

 described by Zetterstedt in Dipt. Scand., xii,, 4550, belonged to C. gtiadrata. 



The two following species of Chrysops are likely to occur in Britain : — 



C. rtifipes Meigen ; rather like C. relicta but smaller and blacker and with much 

 more extensively orange legs, the femora being mainly orange in the female and 

 with at least the front knues broadly orange in the male, while the basal joint of the 

 antennae is more distinctly dilated than in any of the allied species. 



C. paraUelogramma Zeller ; also rather similar to C. relicta, but the outer border 

 of the blackened middle cross-band on the wings rather concave, and the black 

 markings on the second and third abdominal segments of the female smaller 

 and well separated so that they stand almost perpendicularly, whence the name 

 parcdlelogrcwima is derived. 



