684 ASILID^ 



other English records from Devonshire (Plymouth, Dunsford), Hampshire 

 (Lyndhurst), Sussex, Kent (St Mary Cray), Surrey (AVeybridge) Suffolk 

 (Bently Woods, Ipswich), Oxfordshire (near Oxford), Herefordshire, and 

 Sherwood Forest, whilst it has occurred in Wales at Dolgelly and 

 Barmouth, and in Scotland at Forres and Spey Bridge. My dates range 

 from June 1 to August 7, but 1 think it is mainly a June species. It is 

 recorded from all North and Middle Europe and even from Italy. 



Synonymy . — The reasons given by Loew in 1849 for the suppression of any- 

 earlier name for this species seem to me to be perfectly good. It is the A. cestiviis 

 of Walker's Ins. Brit. Dipt., and a specimen in the Hope Museum at Oxford was 

 labelled " cestivus Schra." It is also probably the Asihis tijyidoides of Moses Harris 

 (1782), which had been identified by Stephens as Asihis foixi^mtus L., but the colom* 

 of the legs would at once distinguish it from that, besides the fact that Dysmachus 

 forcipula Zell. (which is probably A. forcipatus L.) is not known as a British 

 species. It is however not at all impossible that N. cyanurus was included under 

 Linne's A. forci'patus when in Syst. Nat., Ed. x., p. 605, he said '"Varietas major 

 Tibiis ferrugineis." 



2. N. cothurnatus Meigen. Bristles of the legs to a large extent 

 yellow; tarsi obviously orange at the base. Abdomen of the male with 

 the seventh and eighth segments black without any steel blue reflection, 

 and in the female with these segments appearing to form part of the ovi- 

 positor. Male claspers short and stout. 



Very similar to the preceding species. 



(J. Face narrow near the antennae but widening downwards until it becomes 

 nearly twice as wide at the mouth, covered with greyish white tomentum 

 which may have a faint yellowish tinge on all the bare parts ; facial knob 

 rather large, occupying almost the lower two-thirds of the face ; face-beard 

 dense and long, not quite extending to the chin-beard, black on the upper 

 part and with a single row of black hairs extending down its outside for 

 about its upper two-thirds, leaving the upper third of the face and the fairly 

 wide sides quite bare; chin- and jowl-beards white or pale yellowish; back 

 of the head light grey, but with a large blackish patch near each upper eye- 

 angle, and with the pubescence on the lower half pale yellowish or whitish 

 and that on the upper part all black even right across the back of the vertex ; 

 the black bristly haired postocular festoon beginning (in several rows) below 

 the middle of the head but becoming longer and stronger near the upper 

 eye-angles and having its bristly hairs there remarkably bent over forwards 

 at the tip at fully a right angle from the base ; frons partly covered 

 with yellowish grey dust and with black hairs on the sides which are 

 nearly as long but not so strong as those on the ocellar prominence, and 

 sometimes with a very few pale hairs close to the antennae ; the upper hairs 

 on the ocellar prominence not turning upwards ; middle part of the frons 

 bare and less obscured by dust ; collar blackish grey, with a little thin pale 

 pubescence and a row of about ten rather inconspicuous black bristles across 

 its upper part. Proboscis shining black, considerably sloped downwards, with 

 short pale pubescence about its tip and with long whitish pubescence beneath 

 its basal half ; palpi short and black, with some black and some whitish 

 bristly pubescence and at the tip with a few extra long porrect black 

 bristly hairs. Antennae black ; basal joint rather long, nearly twice as long 

 as the second joint, and the two basal joints bearing long black bristly hairs 

 beneath and rather short black ones above; second joint less globular than 

 in N. cyanurus ; third joint tapering almost enough to make its tip as narroAv 

 as the base of the style ; style nearly as long as the third joint and with a 

 very short basal joint. 



Thorax pale yellowish grey ; middle stripe dark brownish black and split 



