490 BOMBYLID.E 



eyes extends a little way down the side-cheeks and bears numerous longer 

 rather drooping l^lack hairs ; sides of the mouth and all the lower part of the 

 side-cheeks and all the chin and jowls whitish yellow with rather long not at 

 all scarce whitish yellow pubescence, more especially near the mouthmargins 

 and on the jowls and chin ; back of the head grey with a slight blackish 

 tinge, almost equally inflated up to the vertex and bearing fairly abundant 

 erect shorter yellowish pubescence which is short and glistening close against 

 the eyes ; the absolute margin against the eyes on the upper part is slightly 

 or even conspicuously yellowish. Eyes more rounded though extended rather 

 pointedly to the vertical eye-angle, widely separated. Antenna as in the 

 male. 



Thorax rather lighter grey with no trace of any dark stripes, but dull 

 yellow on the humeri, on an equal broad stripe extending back on each side 

 from them to the wing-bases, on the postalar calli (as a long but rather 

 narrow stripe), on the metapleurse, and on the tip of the scutellum, the latter 

 being sometimes extensively and conspicuously yellow, or at other times 

 only yellow at quite the tip ; pubescence mainly pale yellow, short, depressed, 

 S(iuamose, and dense enough to almost conceal the ground colour, but 

 numerous suberect longer pale hairs also exist ; pubescence on the pleurtB 

 short, sparse, and whitish yellow. Scutellum with numerous longer more erect 

 pale yellow hairs. 



Abdomen more greyish, but the sides of the basal segment often exten- 

 sively yellow or at other times only obscurely so and to a small extent ; 

 pubescence mainly composed of conspicuous short depressed squamose hairs 

 which considerably conceal the ground colour, but with a num1)er of longer 

 suberect brownish yellow hairs scattered all over. Ovipositor short and 

 blunt. 



Legs with shorter less conspicuous whitish yellow pubescence on the coxaj 

 and femora, and with adherent short pubescence which rather densely covers 

 all the femora (especially the hind pair) ; trochanters (especially the middle 

 pair) brownish. Rows of minute spicules may be just traceable on the tibia?. 



Wings almost as in the male. Alar scpamse more glassy white, and their 

 fringes pale yellow. Halteres pale, almost whitish yellow. 



Length about 3-5 mm. 



This species has several close allies on the continent, of which P. 

 canesccns may be the nearest but that has the frons but little produced 

 and the third posterior cell scarcely narrowed at all ; P. convergens also 

 has the frons but little produced but the third posterior cell conspicuously 

 narrowed. A female specimen which I possess has the left wing with a 

 conspicuous cross-vein between the upper branch of the cubital fork and 

 the radial vein a little before the tip of the latter, while the right wing 

 has a trace of a similar fork and also has the upper end cross-vein of the 

 discal cell absent. 



P. pulicaria occasionally occurs in some abundance on the bare 

 patches of sand amongst short herbage near coast sand-hills, and on the 

 flowers of various species of Compodtce. I have records from Cornwall 

 (Padstow, a female with unusually blackish wing-veins taken by Mr C. 

 G. Lamb), Hampshire (Christchurch), Suffolk (Covehithe, whence Curtis 

 recorded it as abundant on the denes in June 1833 sucking the florets 

 of HieraciuDi piloseUa and Hi/porhccris radicata), Norfolk (Winterton), 

 Cheshire {t. B. Cooke), Wales (Porthcawl, Banuouth, and Llanbedr), and 

 Scotland (Aberlady, Aberdeen, and Nairn). My dates extend from the 

 end of May to July 25. It is recorded from all North and Middle Europe. 



Synonymy. — No doubt need arise on this point, and I am glad that Walker's 

 attempt to revive an older name supposed to have been given for it by Olivier was 

 given up by Walker himself in 1856 upon the belief that Olivier's name might refer 

 to some species of Geron. 



