new Indian Species of Musca. 115 



Guindy, Saidapet, South India, are three specimens of a 

 species of Musca, which, although already represented in the 

 British Museum Collection, appears to be undescribed. 

 Though not, of course, a blood-sucking fly in the ordinary 

 sense of the term, the species, as will be seen from Captain 

 Patton's note on its habits, which is printed below, may 

 quite conceivably play a part in the dissemination of micro- 

 organisms pathogenic to animals, and it is therefore well 

 that it should receive a name without delay. This new Musca, 

 then, which I have much pleasure in naming in honour of 

 its gifted discoverer, may be characterized as follows : — 



Musca patloni, sp. n. 



S ? . — Length, <$ (14 specimens) 56 to 85 mm., ? (3 

 specimens) 6"8 to 7*8 mm.; width of head, £ 2'4> to 3 mm., 

 $ 2*8 mm. ; width of front of ? at vertex 1 mm. ; length 

 of wing, $ 54 to 7'6 mm., ? 625 mm. 



Eyes in $ almost in contact in centre of front, separated 

 by little more than greatest width of stoutest thoracic macro- 

 chceta, sides of face in £ , and of lower part of front, viewed 

 from above, brilliantly white ; front in ? of moderate width, 

 its sides (parafrontals) each at least half as broad, or more 

 than half as broad, as frontal stripe ; thorax bronze-black, 

 greyish or yelluicish grey pollinose, dorsum longitudinally 

 striped as in Musca domestica, L., median grey stripe brighter 

 in front ; abdomen ochraceous-bvff* or buff, with shimmering 

 yellowish pollinose patches, and on dorsum a clove-brown or 

 black median stripe, at least on second and third segments, a?id 

 a more or less conspicuous and often triangular clove-brown 

 mark on apex of fourth segment ; in £ extreme hind margins 

 of second and third segments also clove- brown on dorsum ; icings 

 hyaline; legs black. 



Head : ground-colour blackish, grey (whitish grey or pearl- 

 grey) pollinose, sides of front (parafrontals) in ? with a 

 slight yellowish tinge, distinctly grey right up to vertex 

 when viewed somewhat from behind, posterior orbits con- 

 spicuous above (yellowish grey) in ? , but disappearing 

 above in £ ; occiput black ; frontal stripe black, in ? 

 decidedly narrower than in ? of M. domestica, L., its sides 

 but slightly curved ; palpi and proboscis clove-brown, hairs 

 on labella yellowish ; first and second joints of antenna 

 black or blackish, third joint clove-brown, shimmering grey 



* For names and illustrations of colours, see Ridgway, ' A Nomen- 

 clature of Colors for Naturalists ' (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company. 

 18S6). 



8* 



