700 ' ASILID^ 



taken near Banchory in Kincardine in September 1889 ; Colonel Yerbury 

 took a specimen at Aviemore in Inverness in 1898 and another in 1899, 

 and then took two specimens at Nethy Bridge in 1900, while in 1904 and 

 1905 he found it not uncommon at Nethy Bridge, and Brodie, though 

 the females were scarce, and a male in the Eoyal Scottish Museum was 

 taken at Eothiemurchus in 1905, In 1906 Messrs Sharp and Lamb found 

 it at Nethy Bridge and discovered the larvse, which live in the burrows of 

 large wood-feeding Longicorn Coleopterous larvse in Scotch Firs (Pinus 

 sylvestris), where they act as scavengers, as they will not attack living 

 larvae nor do they care for rotten larvae but they immediately suck the 

 juices of a recently dead specimen. Colonel Yerbury took a male as early 

 as June 18 and the species continues until September. 



Synonymy. — For a hundred years the two Linnean species, L. flava and L. 

 gibbosa, and for eightj'^ years the Fabrician L. ephippmm, were well known European 

 species, and, although it was known that very little structural distinction could be 

 found between the three, the remarkably distinct arrangement of coloring in the 

 pubescence and the absence of intermediate forms prevented there being any 

 doubt as to their distinctness. In 1861, however, Gerstaecker named three new 

 forms which also showed a striking structural similarity to L. flava, and since then 

 other forms have been detected which have been described as new species ; 

 Portschinsky in 1877 came to the conclusion that all these forms were only varieties 

 of L. flava, but I have studied representatives of L. hecate and L. auriflua of 

 Gerstaecker and several specimens of what I believe to be L. varia of Loew, and I am 

 not inclined to unite them with L. flava whde I certainly would leave L. gibbosa 

 and L. ephipinum as distinct species. In all these species, and in these only, the 

 hind tibiae of the male are provided with a short but distinct stout spur. 



2. L. marginata Linne. Black, but the abdomen tinged with golden 

 pubescence. The porrect face-beard black. Thorax with a whitish 

 shimmering spot on each side on the humeri, (Fig. 363.) 



A very distinct fly in which the black colour has a tendency 

 towards violet. 



$. Face covered with dense orange to yellowish white decumbent coarse 

 pubescence all across the middle part though near the eyes the pubescence 

 has a whitish shimmer, but the upper part of the face close to the antennae is 

 rather puffed out and bears inconspicuous long nearly erect black hairs, while 

 the rounded face-knob (which occupies nearly the lower half of the face) bears 

 a face-beard composed of numerous outstanding black bristly hairs ; both the 

 yellow pubescence and the black face-beard extend from eye to eye ; shorter 

 and finer black hairs extend along the sides of the mouth, and all the lower 

 part of the face and the sides of the mouth are black with microscopical 

 specks of grey dust ; face moderately broad and only slightly curved out to 

 the mouth-sides ; jowls very small, but bearing abundant yellow pubescence 

 which extends nearly half-way_ up the back of the head ; back of the head 

 with a whitish postocular margin near by up to the rounded upper eye-angles, 

 behind which the head is clothed on more than the upper half with dense 

 long strong black hairs except on the broad bare shining black postvertical 

 channel, but these black hairs are too numerous and too widely extended to 

 form a festoon even though the foremost hairs all have their tips obviously 

 bent over forwards. Frons wider than the face, shining black but greyish in 

 the channels which extend forwards and outwards from the sides of the 

 elevated ocellar prominence to the eyemargins at almost the level of the 

 antennjB, while the ocellar prominence (which is placed below the middle of 

 the frons) bears numerous short black hairs and two extra long outstanding 

 ones between the ocelli, and the black postocular hairs continue (though 



