Ixxviii NATURAL HISTORY. 



Gen. 1160.— TIPULA. (Linn.) 



Division A with the fourth cell of the wings peduncled. 



29. Arctica. Cinereous, wings clouded with brown; legs subferruginous, tarsi fuscous. 



Length ten lines and a half or eleven lines, breadth one inch and seven to eight lines. 



PI. A, fig. 15, female; fig. 4, underside of apex of abdomen of the same. 



Silky slate colour ; thorax with a brown line down the centre, a stripe of the same 

 colour on each side, furcate at the base ; abdomen more cinereous, the incisures slightly 

 ochreous, the apex horny, with a large oval piceous and shining shield above, ter- 

 minated by two moveable, lanceolate, serrated, and ferruginous lobes, curved at the 

 apex, the penultimate joint furnished with two long slender spines beneath (fig. 4) • 

 wings clouded with brown, forming a spot on the stigma and another behind it, and 

 leaving several large transparent and irregularly-formed spots along the disc, the costa 

 and base are ochreous, the nervures dark brown ; halteres dull and pale ochreous, 

 fuscous at the tip; legs dull ferruginous, tips of thighs, tibise, and tarsi, black. 



Specimens only of the female were preserved, and none of them had antennae, or the 

 anterior feet. " They appeared," says Commander Ross, " about the same time as the 

 Culex, and were equally numerous. Their larvae are the principal food of the plover 

 and other birds that seek their prey in the marshes, as was proved on the 27th of June, 

 when great numbers of the larvae of the Tipula ? were taken from the stomach of 

 a gull that had been feedino; in the marshes." 



This fine species of Tipula is reuiarkable for the singular termination to the apex of 

 the abdomen, being, I imagine, an extraordinary development of the sexual organs- 

 I have never seen any other species like it in this respect, excepting one lately described 

 under the name of T. montana,* which has the same horny shield and broad serrated 

 forceps, and it is worthy to be observed that tliis species is attached to elevated dis- 

 tricts in the north, having only been found on Skiddaw and mountains of Scotland in 

 July, by Mr. Dale and myself. 



Fam.— SYRPHID^. 



fGEN. 1245.— HELOPHILUS. {Meig.) 



39. Bilineatiis. Black, pubescent, two pale lines on the thorax, six lunulate spots 

 on the abdomen, the first two yellow, as well as the base of the tibiae. 



* Ciiiti.'s Brit. Ent.— vol. xi., fol. 493, no. 9fl. t lb.— vol. ix., fol. 429. 



