ON AGATHOMYIA COLIJNI, VERR. 89 



acquainted is Dr. Jenkinson's, from one or two gardens in the 

 town of Cambridge ; here seven more specimens occurred 

 between July 20th and October 17th (' Ento. Mo. Mag.,' 1903, 

 p. 173). Both collections comprised the sexes in consort; and 

 we find that the PipuncuHd Dipteron, Chalarus spurivs, Fall., 

 occurs commonly in the same Cambridge garden {lib. cit., p. 223). 



On August 22nd, 1915, I was much elated to take a male of 

 this beautiful velvety fly on a dining-room window in this house ; 

 but since the economy of the genus is, or was, fifteen years ago, 

 quite unknown, I regarded it as a migrant visitor, and knew not 

 where to look for more of the kind. Nor were any seen the 

 following year. But on June 13th, 1917, another male was 

 boxed in the orchard, some hundred and fifty yards away, while 

 sitting on a leaf after hovering in the sunshine. Four days later 

 a dozen were hovering, exactly as does Chlorops taniopus, Mg., 

 at about two feet from the rank grass at the same spot in the 

 orchard, and settling for a brief time upon the surrounding 

 leaves of elm and sloe, between three and six feet from the 

 ground ; some of these went to Prof. J. W. Carr at Nottingham, 

 and I have a few more to give away. Thenceforth the species 

 occurred very freely for some ten yards square at this particular 

 spot through July up to August 18th, after which I saw no more, 

 which is strange in face of the above Cambridge dates ; and with 

 them I took — without noticing any distinction, so very similar 

 are their facies — the common Chalarus spurius in July. Excluding 

 the original silent record, there appears to be some connection 

 between A. collini and gardens ; in the present instance, I 

 suspect that the flies came, as is the usual custom of their 

 family, from fungi ; the only fungi near their rendezvous were 

 on the trunks of ancient and moribund apple trees, near none 

 of which they were seen. Their preference for the elm and 

 sloe leaves may easily be accounted to the fact that the edges of 

 my orchard have been allowed, pro bono entomologico, to grow 

 into jungle, while the middle is simply grass and apple-trunks. 

 The Dipteron is a small and fragile insect, with scintillating 

 (in female, white) pubescence, which two facts may be supposed 

 to render as much shelter from wind as possible, a desirable 

 adjunct to their enjoyment ; on one occasion only, a male was 

 found sitting on whitethorn in a shrubbery a hundred yards 

 away. In the early spring I hope to collect fungi from the 

 apples ; may it not prove Dead Sea fruit ! 



Our only other species of the genus, A. antennata, Zett., has 

 been found in a few British localities, among them is Cambs. ; 

 I swept a single male from tangled vegetation in the grounds of 

 Muckross Abbey, near Killarney, on June 7th, 1913, and have 

 heard of no other Irish records. Doubtless this has been a 

 garden from mediaeval times, like my own and those of Cambridge, 

 which suggests further attachment of the genus to really ancient 



ENTOM. — APRIL, 1918. I 



