182 Mr. E. E. Austen on the 



Xylomyia maculata is an extremely handsome insect, rather 

 more than 9 millim. (4*5 lines) in length, shining black, with 

 the thorax spotted and the abdomen banded with yellow, with 

 yellow legs, the tips of the posterior femora and tibiae broadly 

 banded with black, and the ends of the tarsi infuscated. 

 Mr. Gorham bred eleven specimens of the fly from pupae 

 found with some forty others on June 29, 1898, in a rotten 

 oak-tree in the New Forest. 



Mr. G. H. Verrall's 'List of British Diptera' (1888) in- 

 cludes three species of Xylomyia, of which two (X varia, 

 Mg., and X maculata, F.) are printed in italics, as requiring 

 confirmation, while the third (X marginata, Mg.) appearsin 

 ordinary type, as an authenticated member of the British 

 fauna. Of these three species, two (maculata and varia) are 

 given by "Walker, in the 'Insecta Britannica. — Diptera' 

 (vol. i. 1851, p. 34), under Subula*. With reference to 

 S. maculata Walker writes :— " Very rare ; inhabits the New 

 Forest, Hampshire. In Mr. Stephens's collection." While 

 as to varia he says : — " Very rare. In the British Museum. 

 The larva feeds on the wood of the oak." 



A (?) specimen of Xylomyia maculata (placed under 

 Xylophagus, and labelled " scutellata?"), with a puparium in 

 which the pupa-skin is sticking precisely as in our latest 

 acquisition, is still contained in the Museum in the old 

 Stephensian Collection of British Diptera, which also includes 

 a male and female of what appears to be a variety of X. varia, 



* The name Subula, as applied to a genus of Diptera, owes its origin 

 to a note by Meigen published in 1820 (Syst. Beschr. bek. europ. zweifl. 

 Insekten, ii. p. 15), in which it is stated that Megerle v. Miihlfeld forms 

 the genus Subula out of Meigen's second division of the genus Xylo- 

 phagtis, comprising the three species (maculatus, F., varius, Mg., and 

 marginatus, Mg.) mentioned above. Subula, however, is preoccupied, 

 having been used by Schummel in 1817 for a genus of Mollusca, and in 

 1861 Xylomyia was'proposed in its stead by Rondani (Dipt. Ital. Prodrom. 

 iv. p. 11). This emendation was ignored by Schiner, both in his ' Fauna 

 Austriaca ' and ' Catalogus Systematicus Dipteroruni Europae,' and, for 

 some unknown reason, modern continental dipterists, such as Brauer and 

 van der Wulp, still follow Schiner's lead. Osten Sacken, who noticed 

 Rondani's name in 1886 (Biol. Centr.-Am., Dipt. i. p. 23), did not adopt 

 it, since he was of the opinion that " a change in a name of such old 

 standing involves much more inconvenience than its retention." In the 

 face, however, of modern ideas on the subject of priority such an objec- 

 tion is scarcely valid, and it is safe to say that the sooner the name 

 Xylomyia is definitely recognized the better. As indicated above, Ron- 

 dani's designation was duly adopted by Verrall in his ' List ' ; yet van der 

 Wulp (' Catalogue of the Described Diptera from South Asia ' : The 

 Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1896, p. 46), while remarking that Subula is 

 preoccupied, is apparently ignorant of the existence of Rondani's 

 Xylomyia. 



