Cutiterebra and its Allies in the British Museum. ^^85 



or Blue Eabbit Fly," and the former of these names woukl 

 seem to imply tiiat the white tip to the abdomen is a con- 

 spicuous feature ; but in the case of the two specimens bred 

 by Townsend it was not until the colour of the abdomen was 

 restored with chloroform that a " greyish bloom," clothing 

 the inferior lateral edges of the segments, was observed " to 

 extend in both specimens upon sides of abdomen and dorsum 

 of last two segments, or even in places on dorsum of second 

 segment." \\ ith reference to the specimen from Colorado, 

 Townsend writes : — " The dorsum only of segments 1 to 3 of 

 abdomen is narrowly purplish black, the side of the abdomen 

 and all of last segment being covered with the whitish bloom 

 and circular purplish-black spots." Clark's description of the 

 abdomen, however, runs as follows : — " Abdomen breve, 

 atrum, lucidum, supern^ violaceo resplendens : segmentis 

 duobus postrerais hirtis, albidis, punctisque variis atris 

 elevatis, giabris." I take this to mean that the white seg- 

 ments are more hairy than the rest, and clothed with pale 

 pile; Townsend, however, says nothing about this, though, 

 on the other hand, he states that the yellowish-white hairs 

 clothing the pleurae are " continued completely around edge 

 of scutellum," which is not mentioned by Clark, Our 

 specimens have the scutellum entirely clothed with black 

 hairs, the first four segments of the abdomen shining violet- 

 purple, clothed with short black pile, the fifth entirely covered 

 with whitish-yellow pollen, sprinkled, especially at the sides, 

 with small round shining dots of the ground-colour, and fairly 

 thickly clothed with short pale golden-yellowish pile. It is 

 therefore evident that, whether I am correct in assigning 

 these specimens to C. fontinella^ Clk., or not, they certainly 

 cannot belong to the same species as Townsend's specimens. 

 Except that only the last segment of the abdomen is whitish 

 yellow, our specimens agree very well with Clark's descrip- 

 tion so far as it goes. Tlie front shows two small triangular 

 flecks of silvery- white pollen, resting on the eye on each side, 

 which are not mentioned by Clark, and there is a similar 

 fleck on the occipital margin on each side of the ocellar 

 tubercle. The whole of the face and cheeks is covered with 

 yellowish-white pollen and clothed with pile of a similar 

 colour. In addition to the round shining spot on each cheek 

 mentioned by Clark there is a similar but smaller one resting 

 on the lower margin of the eye. The antennary pit is greyish, 

 the lower margin on each side shining black, and the vertical 

 fissura frontalis terminates on each side below in the usual 

 dull black triangular mark. The antennse are dark brown or 



