Bihliojrnphical Notice. ID 9 



BIBLIOGllArmCAL NOTICE. 



IVitstnitwns of British Bhiod-surhing Flies, with Notes by Ernest 

 Edward Austkx. London : Printed by Order of the Trustees of 

 the British Museum, 1!J0(J, 



The student of British Diptera has many difficulties to contend 

 with, and not the least of those is the absence of ajiy good descrip- 

 tive handbook, especially one that is illustrated. The Lepidoptera, 

 Coleoptera, Aculeate Ilymenoptera, Hemiptera, the Dragonflies and 

 the Sawtlies have all been monographed and well illustrated by 

 British authors, but with the exception of Walker's work, published 

 in the " fifties " and now scarce and out of print (containing a few 

 plain lithographic plates), and the few plates in Curtis's 'British 

 Entomology,' there is nothing to help the collector of two- winged 

 flies. A book like the one now under consideration will therefore 

 be eagerly welcomed by the small but ra[>idly growing band of 

 Britisli di|)terists. Although the scope of the work, as indicated by 

 its title, does not admit of a purely scientific arrangement, yet the 

 volume gives us what is practically a pictorial monograph of tlio 

 Culicidit, Tabanida\ and Hippoboscidfe, while a few members of the 

 Cliironomidie, Simuliidtc, and Muscidne are necessarily included. Of 

 tlio thirty-four plates it is impossible to speak too highly. Executed 

 by the three-colour process, on paper which is reputed to be perma- 

 nent, they are superb specimens of this comparatively new art, and 

 tar surpass anything which has been attempted before in illustration 

 of tliis order of insects, either in this country or abroad, save, of 

 course, tlie splendid ^[onograph on the Tsetse Flies by the same 

 author and issued under the same auspices. No one attempting to 

 name examples in the three families more fully represented need 

 have any difficulty with the present work before him, and yet in 

 the past even the large and handsome Tabanidte were far from easy 

 to determitie. Take, for example, the two species of Cleg, Ifcemato- 

 potit j>h(vi(ili<i and H. crassiconiis, both of fairly wide distribution. 

 It is impossible to imagine more beautiful and accurate figures of 

 these two 8])ecies than those given on plates xi. and xii., while the 

 specific distinctions (e. g. the basal joint of the antenna, the black 

 spots on the frons, the light lines on the thorax, and the mottled 

 pattern on the wings) are strikingly shown. 



The text is short but useful. It might have been more useful if 

 attention had been paid to the published records of the flies in (juestion, 

 instead of limiting the notes on distribution to a list of specimens 

 actually in the British Museum collection. Thus, for example, 

 Ati/IotKs fi(Jvii.<i has been recorded from Scotland, but there is no 

 mention of the fact on the page devoted to this species. But it is 

 easy to be too critical, and in spite of this slight sin of omission (which 

 can easily be rectified in a new edit ion) the volume is a great boon to 

 the collector of the Diptera of the British Islands. And not only does 

 it appeal to the entomologist in this country, hut also to those going 



