COLLECTING FUNGUS-GNAT3. 85 



cop. On the contrary, S. carhonaria appears in the earl}' 

 spring; I found it flying in an Ipswich garden on April 29th, 

 1895. Another kind, probably S. fiaripes, Pz., was taken in 

 Wangford Wood near Southwold on September 18th, 1913 ; but 

 the remainder must be omitted for lack of names : they are 

 often common among Caltha jxilustris about May 10th, on 

 liracken in woods during September, on Heracleum flowers in 

 July, and on house windows in June ; on May '21st, 1910, there 

 were quantities among the aphid, Drepanosiphum phalanoides, 

 whose sweet secretion they licked up with avidity on maple 

 in my garden here ; and the same year I found species at 

 Louisburg in Co. Mayo. I do not think that the majority feed 

 in fungi, but simply in decaying wood. On January 22nd, 1898, 

 several larvse were found in rotten poplar at Bentley (all 

 localities are in Suft'olk unless noted), from whose puparia 

 both sexes emerged on May 10th following, and the male is in 

 the British Museum, from a willow-stump, brought into my study 

 on April 10th, 1907, one Sciara emerged on the 13th of the 

 following month, and on 20th three more were out and a pair 

 of them at once copulated ; on February 14th, 1901, a foot-long 

 rotten oak branch was brought home from a Wherstead fir wood, 

 from which there emerged on June 9th next hundreds of Seiara 

 in both sexes. 



The majority of the Mycetophilinae are common insects, but 

 of the genus Cordyla I have met with only two species, by 

 sweeping at Letheringham Wood on August loth, 1918, and 

 on windows of this house on August 11th, 1919. Dynatosomn 

 fuscicorne is a lovely black-and-white gnat, which occurred on 

 the windows of this house on August 26th, 1917. Mycetophila 

 punctata, Mg., now called M. fungorum, De G., certainly 

 hibernates, since I have discovered it in a bag of ground- refuse 

 brought home on February 11th, 1904, from Wherstead ; it 

 seems to first come abroad on April 16th, when I beat it from 

 Pinus sylvestris in 1897 ; it seems to disappear after May 17th 

 until the middle of July, and is then abroad till September 18th, 

 when I took it in 1912 on Southwold pier. M. lineohi is even 

 more a winter species, probably more familiar to Coleopterists 

 than Dipterists ; on December 13th, 1899, it was gaily flitting 

 about my bedroom window in Ipswich, though snow covered 

 the ground ; it occurred in the Wherstead bag with the last 

 species in February ; in Bentley Woods on February 4th, 1900, 

 it was not rare, while exactly a month later I found it in the 

 utmost profusion there by beating Picea excelsa ; singly at 

 Bramford in April and Westleton in July. M. bimaculata has 

 only occurred to me in March — on 3rd by beating fir at Bentley 

 in 1899, on 4th by beating Picea there the next year, and on 

 16th there five years earlier. M. cinguhun is found on these 

 house-windows towards the end of October till November 30th, 



