58 DEER. 
name. The thorax (body between the wings) chiefly black, but with 
a cross-band in front immediately behind the head and in front of the 
wings of tawny or olive brown above, lighter at the sides, and ending 
in a patch of very pale hairs beneath the insertion of the wings; the 
hinder part of the thorax with black hairs, and ‘the scutellum black 
brown, with olive brown, and at the sides fox-red or greyish yellow, 
hairs intermixed.’’ In my own specimen the edging of hair is greyish 
yellow. Abdomen with the fore part with blackish yellow, fox-red, or 
gold brown hairs; the third and fourth rings with black hair, lighter 
towards the tail; at the extremity and beneath the abdomen also with 
two white patches at the base. The bluntly rounded or bluntly egg- 
shaped form of the abdomen is very noticeable. The legs are black ; 
the tarsi (shanks) brown; the wings broad, blunt, about half an inch 
long, and moderately transparent, with blackish brown veins some- 
times bordered with a brown tinge, or the lower part of the wing with 
a brown tinge. 
From collation of different descriptions of the fly, there would 
appear to be some amount of difference in colour, and in my own 
examination I find great difficulty in determining colour, from the 
great amount of variously-coloured hairs sprinkled amongst the black, 
or, again, of coloured and white together, and not only this, but the 
coloured hairs themselves not being of the same tint throughout their 
length, so that careful examination, with the light falling in different 
directions, is necessary to make out the precise colour. My own 
specimen runs to rather more foxy red on the centre of the upper fore 
part of the abdomen, and also at the extremity, like the variety de- 
scribed by Macquart as auribarbis. But in all cases this species (the 
Red-bearded Bot Fly) is distinguishable by the well-marked red band 
below the face from the three other species known on the Continent of 
Europe, in which the so-called beard is yellow or grey.* 
The above notes are merely given as some degree of help towards 
recognising this fly by observers who would desire an untechnical 
description. With regard to the maggot stage, in which they cannot 
fail to be prejudicial to the Deer, I am not aware that we have as yet 
any notes of observation in this country, so I borrow the following 
condensed abstract almost entirely from the elaborate paper of Dr. 
Brauer, previously quoted. 
The method of attack is for the flies to lay their small living maggots, 
in the early or middle part of the summer, at the opening of the 
nostrils of the Red Deer, up which they work, adhering by their mouth- 
hooks, until they reach the throat of the Deer, where they may still be 
found in February. | 
The length of the maggot at this third stage is from about an inch 
* See Brauer’s ‘(@striden,’ p. 193, 
