728 ASILIDtE 



pubescence at the sides to the end of the seventh segment, and has nearly- 

 all the short pubescence on the disc pale ; the cross-veins are rather clouded, 

 and Bigot's specimens vary very much in size. A species taken by 

 Colonel Yerbury at Cintra on February 16 and March 1, and at Collares 

 on February 6, 1896, has the claspers brownish orange or shining dark 

 chestnut and shaped almost as in L. Bdlardii but bearing much shorter 

 bristly pubescence and with the lower angle sharper, the abdomen with 

 pale pubescence even to the underside of the claspers, and with the grey 

 bands broad, the metapleural fan nearly all pale, the front femora with 

 obvious postero-dorsal bristles, and all the tibiae with more numerous 

 bristles which are not at all concealed (as in L. Bellardii) by any long 

 pubescence. It is possible that this latter species is the true L. Macquarii 

 of Ferris, but that species should have a parti-colored face-beard and is so 

 little known that it may possibly even belong to some other genus. 

 Even the characters derived from the genitalia must be accepted with 

 caution, as I possess one male of L. cinctus (out of several from 

 Mr Nicholas Cooke) in which the claspers seem to be shorter and 

 consequently broader in proportion, and in that specimen a few pale brown 

 hairs occur in the face-beard ; I believe also that the claspers in all the 

 species of Lasiopogon are sometimes more or less reddish, possibly through 

 immaturity. I note that Loew (Berl. ent. Zeitschr., xviii., 369) referred to 

 Z. Bellardii as a valid species, but I do not think that he ever mentioned 

 L. montanus or L. Macquarti, and I also note that a form without clouded 

 cross-veins was referred by Schiner to L. cinctus but by Strobl to 

 L. montanus var. immaculatus. 



L. cinctus sometimes occurs in considerable numbers in the spring in 

 the New Forest; Colonel Yerbury has taken it at Oxshott in Surrey 

 and at Porthcawl in Glamorgan, while in 1870 the late Mr Nicholas Cooke 

 sent me a number from Southport in Lancashire and the Cheshire coast. 

 It has occurred from May 11 to June 13. Colonel Yerbury noticed that a 

 number of specimens at Oxshott on May 20, 1900, were feeding on small 

 Tijpulidce, while some at Porthcawl preyed on Pachyrrliina histrio. 



Synonyviy, — This species stood in old British Collections under its synonym of 

 L. cinctel'lus Meig. 



13. DIOCTRIA. 



Dioctria Meigen, Illig. Mag., ii., 270 (1803). 



Slender almost bare (never at all woolly haired) flies of 

 medium or rather large size and usually of blackish brown or 

 shining black colour ; easily known by the narrow cylin- 

 drical abdomen and the long broad wings. 



Head short and rather broad, standing well away from the thorax because of the 

 produced large prothorax and elongated collar and neck. Face and frons nearly 

 parallel-sided, the face being slightly narrowest about its middle, and the frons 

 slightly wider than the face and sometimes gradually widening upwards or some- 

 times slightly narrowing almost up to the ocelli and then arching out to the 

 occiput ; face without a knob unless the varying amount of production of the 

 lower part can be considered one, bare above the rather thin but long face- or 



