2. BOMBYLIUS 497 



2. B. major Liune. Tawny haired. Wings with an irregular but 

 sharply defined dark brown foremargin extending to the tip and without 

 any isolated spot. (Fig. 290.) 



A very pretty conspicuous bee-like fly, which is quite 

 distinct from any other British species. 



(?. Frons brownisli ashy grey with a middle furrow, clothed with long dense 

 hairs which are black on its upper part but which become mainly light brown 

 near the antennae, and with some short (about a quarter the length of the 

 long hairs) pale brown depressed pubescence about the border line between 

 the frons and the side-cheeks ; face produced (in profile) snoutdike about as 

 much as the length of the eyes, brownish grey, and clothed on the middle part 

 with dense long mainly yellowish brown or brownish yellow hairs which 

 droop at their tips, and intermingled with which are a few equally long black 

 hairs, but towards the sides of the face the black hairs increase in number until 

 all the long pubescence near the eyes becomes black and more erect, and this 

 is caused by the yellowish bi-own hairs growing shorter and more drooping as 

 they approach these sides ; the long black hairs diminish in numbers down- 

 ' wards and are reduced to a single rather sparse row down the lower part of 

 the eyemargins and round under the eyes to the hind eye-angle ; jowls small, 

 light greyish yellow, and bearing long whitish pubescence which is hardly so 

 dense as the pubescence on the face, and with shorter (about one -third the 

 length of the long pubescence) depressed whitish pubescence, and this long 

 pubescence merges into the similar whitish pubescence on the lower part of 

 the pleurge ; back of the head inflated to about as much as a third the length 

 of the eye, and clothed with dense coai\se dark tawny pubescence intermixed 

 with which are numerous but not dense much longer erect thin black hairs, 

 which rest as a sort of collar against the dense tawny pubescence of the 

 thorax; vertex greyish black, triangular, elevated, and bearing a tuft of 

 long exclusively black hairs. Proboscis dull black, about as long as the distance 

 ivorn the tip of the snout to the tip of the scutellum. Eyes touching for 

 about as long a space as the length of the vertex, slightly widening down- 

 wards. Antennse (fig. 285) dull black, about as long as the distance from the 

 tip of the snout to the back of the head ; basal joint linear, about five 

 times as long as wide, covered with light grey dust, and bearing all oyer 

 (except about the base) numerous long straight black hairs which point 

 outwards and rather forwards ; second joint about one-third the length of 

 the basal one, long cup-shaped, and obscured by light grey dust but with the 

 tip ferruginous, and bearing numerous short black hairs on the upper and 

 outer sides which point forwards ; third joint long strap-shaped, about twice 

 as long as the basal joint, bare, slightly thickened about the middle ; style 

 short, two-jointed, with the basal joint quadrate and rather narrower than the 

 tip of the third antennal joint, and the thinner and rather tapering end joint 

 about twice as long as the basal one. 



Thorax with a deep black ground colour obscured by very dense pale 

 tawny pubescence ; pubescence all equal as if shorn ; when seen from above 

 the deep black ground colour is visible, but the front part and sides appear 

 dirty greyish yellow or greyish brown, and there is a pale yellow patch above 

 each wing-base and a larger longer fan-like yellow patch behind each wing- 

 base radiating down to the patch on the metapleurse ; seen from in front the 

 pubescence appears to be dirty greyish white or greyish yellow or even 

 brownish with broad paler or even almost whitish sides, and when tdted the 

 sides after the wing-base are broadly shimmering yellow and then the disc of 

 the thorax has a more brownish yellow tinge; seen from behind the 

 pubescence has a unicolorous dirty brownish orange hue because the pale 

 patches above and behind the wing-base are not visible unless the specimen 

 be tilted almost upright ; seen sideways the pubescence is mainly dirty whitish 

 or brownish yellow, against which (when pale) the brownish tawny pubescence 

 and the long black cUiation on the back of the head stand out conspicuously, 

 while the pubescence above and behind the wing-base appears to be rather 



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