488 BOMBYLID.E 



third elongated, peg-shaped with a (sometimes very short and indistinct) terminal 

 style. 



Thorax oval, longer than broad, and not much arched, clothed in the male with 

 rather abundant but not dense fairly long erect pubescence without any sign of 

 bristles, Init in the female with only short depressed pubescence ; pleurfe with only 

 slight piibescence, except for a rather dense tuft on the mesopleura^ ; metapleurse 

 bare. Scutellum large and semicircular. 



Abdomen with seven segments, conical in the male but rather ovate and rather 

 flattened in the female ; pubescence as on the thorax of the female. 



Legs long and thin, entirely without bristles except for some tiny spicules on the 

 hind tibiae. 



Wings (fig. 281) longer than the abdomen; cubital vein with a long fork which 

 is not very Avidely open, the upper branch ending in the wing-tip nearer to the 

 lower branch than to the radial vein ; discal cross-vein well beyond the middle of 

 the discal cell, almost upright ; discal cell emitting two veinlets to the wingmargin 

 in addition to the upper branch of the postical vein ; submarginal cells two ; 

 posterior cells four, all wide ojjen but the third one sometimes rather contracted ; 

 anal cell closed and even petiolate ; ambient vein not continued round the alula. 



The metamorphoses are unknown, hut shoukl not be difficult to trace. 



The flies occur on bare patches among low growing flowers, and our 

 British species is sometimes abundant on Comjjositcc on sandy grassy 

 ground near the coast. They bore into the blossoms with their long 

 proboscis and are said to rest so during the night. 



This genus is easily distinguished by the long and little widened 

 cubital fork of which the upper branch runs straight out to the wing-tip, 

 and by the closed anal cell. 



Phthiria includes about fifteen Paleearctic and about twenty North 

 American species, while stray species are recorded from Central and 

 South America (Chili), South Asia, and South Africa ; all other references 

 require confirmation. We have only one species known as British, though 

 one or two more may occur. 



1. P. pulicaria Mikan. Scutellum all black or at the utmost with 

 a yellow spot at its tip. Frons strongly prominent. Wings with the 

 third posterior cell rather contracted towards the wingmargin. 



By far the smallest British species of the Bombylidw. 



^ . Head almost triangular in profile, the produced frons (or more strictly speak- 

 ing the very much inflated upper part of the side-cheeks) forming one point 

 of the triangle, and the vertex and hind mouth angle forming the other two 

 points ; frons and upper part of the side-cheeks conspicuously produced but 

 not to the extent of half the diameter of the eye when viewed in profile, but 

 when seen from above for about as long a space as the eyes touch ; frons 

 itself depressed as compared witli the inflated cheeks, slate colored but (when 

 viewed from in front) separated from the side-cheeks by a paler grey depres- 

 sion, and bearing comparatively long but not dense erect black hairs, or more 

 correctly those on the back part erect but those on the fore part sloping rather 

 forward. Face mainly occupied by the very much inflated broad side-cheeks 

 which leave only the middle quarter occupied by the depressed bare slaty grey 

 epistoma ; side-cheeks in profile light slaty grey but more blackish when seen 

 from in front, descending nearly straight from the antennje for about one-third 

 their length but then sloping back a little to the upper mouth-edge and thereby 

 beconung a little narrower about half-way down this slope, but still broad to 

 all the mouth-edge, and all clothed with numerous though not dense equal 

 long erect black hairs, but the inner margin of each side-cheek with a fringe 

 of long white hairs which curve somewhat over the face and mouth, while a 

 similar white pubescence extends all round and behind the mouth ; the side- 



