66 SYRPHID.E. 



53. Iscliyrosyrphus sivae, Bhj. 



Ischyrosyrphus i^ivce, Bigot, Ann. Soc. Eut. France, (6) ii, Bull. 

 p." Ixviii (,1882). 



S . ''AnteuiisB tawny, tip slightly darkened; face and frons 

 yellow ; thorax dull aeneous with rather dense tawny pubescence, 

 and three longitudinal, narrow, brown stripes ; scutellum tawny 

 with tawny pubescence ; abdomen coucolorous, with rather dense 

 but very short, tawny touientuni ; base of abdomen narrowly 

 black; three narrow black transverse bands, Avidened in the 

 middle. Legs tawny, base of femora black; bind tibite and tips 

 of tarsi broadly darkened. AVings pale yellowish ; anterior margin 

 a little deeper brownish yellow. Length 19 millim. One speci- 

 men, India." 



I know^ nothing of this species. The tupe is recorded as in the 

 Bigot collection, but I have been unable to find it there. 



Genus LASIOPTICUS, llond. 



LasioptJiicus, llondaui, Nuov. Ann. Sci. Nat. Bologna, (2) ii, p. 459 



(1844). 

 Catabomha, Osten-Sacken, Bull. U.S. Geolog. Surv. iii, p. 325 



(1877). 



Genotype, Syrplms pyrastri, L. ; by Rondani's designation. 



This genus differs from Syrpluis almost solely in the inflated 

 frons in both sexes, and the area of larger facets on the upper 

 and middle portion of the eye in the S- The species have a 

 certain facies of their own, but the genus is not universally 

 recognised, and some authors prefer the use of the name 

 Catnhomba, Osten-Sacken ; though the two genera are perhaps 

 not exactly synonymous, as llondani's limits of Lasiopticus 

 (LasiopJithicus) were vague. 



The question whether the name Lasiopticus or Catabomha 

 should stand for i\\e pyrastri, L., group of species of Syrphus has 

 been discussed previously, but opinions difter, and I have 

 experienced some difficulty in deciding which name to adopt. 

 Verrall's contention was that Lasiopticus, as proposed by Rondani 

 in 1844 (the species being described in 1857), was a wholly 

 impossible genus on account of the inclusion of incongruous 

 species; but this does not seem flawless, as in the first phice the 

 genus as originally constituted was not more ill-founded than many 

 others. of those times ; and in the second place, Eoudani in 1856 

 (Dipt. Ital. Prod, i, p. 51) set up a definite type-species, pyrastri, L. 

 This would at least attach to that group of species the name 

 Lasiopticus, even if that genus was subsequently shorn of all the 

 other species placed in it by Rondani. Therefore, when Osten- 

 Sacken in 1877 erected Catahomha on 2yyrastvi* he went beyond 



* Verrall says the genus was founded by Osten-Sacken for pyrastri "and 

 its allies," hut pyrastriv/iis selected definitelyas the type of Lasiopticus hi 1856. 



