mien) 
LPR 1 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST”, 
ae LIY.] APRIL, 1921. (No, 695 
FOSSIL TIPULIDA FROM THE OLIGOCENE OF 
Pay Ishh OF WIGHT. 
By T. D. A. Cockerett ann F. H. Harness. 
Tue Tipulide now described were collected in the Bembridge 
beds at Gurnet Bay, Isle of Wight, and we are indebted to Dr. 
A. 8. Woodward, of the British Museum, and Mr. R. W. Hooley. 
of Winchester, for permission to study and describe them. The 
Hooley Collection is at present deposited in the British Museum 
(Natural History). All the specimens now described were 
apparently collected by the late Mr. a’Court Smith, of Gurnet or 
Gurnard, Isle of Wight. He was the discoverer of the deposit, 
and his materials eventually found their way into the British 
Museum and the collections of Brodie, Hooley and Lacoe. 
Those from the last-mentioned collection are now in the United 
States National Museum ; the others are in the British Museum, 
the Hooley Collection, on loan, with the understanding that the 
types will eventually become the property of the Museum.* 
The most interesting species in the series now described is 
the Macromastix, representing a genus known living (with several 
species) only from Australia and New Zealand. It was recog- 
nised from our figure by Mr. F. W. Edwards, to whom we are 
greatly indebted for advice, and for access to literature and the 
collection of Tipulide at the Museum. The Styringomyia is also 
very interesting, the genus having first been known from amber 
and copal, and only in more recent years detected in the living 
fauna. 
The genera of Tipulide found fossil in the Gurnet Bay 
material, but not here discussed, are: Megistocera, Gymnastes, 
Empeda (2 spp.), Epiphragma, Limnobia, Mongoma (2 spp.), 
Atarba, and Rhipidia. There are also additional species of 
Tipula (4), Gonomyia (8), Limnophila (8), Dicranomyia and 
Styringomyia. 
* E. J. a’Court Smith was born in Buckinghamshire in 1814. When about 14 
or 15 years of age he was wrecked on the Island of South Georgia, and was not 
able to get away for seventeen months. For many years he was a sailor (officer) 
in the service of the East India Company, and when the charter of the Company 
expired he served in the West Indian mail-boats. He was in the Crimean war. 
In 1859 he retired, and after a long residence in the Isle of Wight died in 1900. 
He corresponded with Ruskin, who presented him with a copy of Lindley and 
Hutton’s ‘ Fossil Flora of Great Britain.’ We are indebted to his sons, living at 
Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, for these particulars. It is greatly to be regretted that 
Mr. a’Court Smith did not live to see his splendid collections described. 
ENTOM.—APRIL, 1921. H 
