1889.] 211 



ANTSOMYIA MARSHAMI, STEPHENS. 

 BY E. H. MEADE. 



Some time since I was asked by Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell if I knew 

 the fly which J. B. Stephens had named A. Marsliami in his 

 Systematic Catalogue (p. 307, No. 8903) ; and could tell him if it was 

 a new species, or one that has been described under some other name. 

 I told him it was unknown to me, but that I would try to find and 

 examine it, if any specimens existed in the collection of the late 

 Mr. Stephens in the British Museum. 



Being in London in October last, I went to the Museum, and, 

 by the kind assistance of Mr. Waterhouse, easily found three examples 

 thus named, placed in the cabinet exactly in tbe situation indicated in 

 the Systematic Catalogue. Upon examination, I ascertained that they 

 were spotted varieties of Mydcea impuncta, Fallen, which has been 

 described as a distinct species by Zetterstedt, under the name of 

 A. demigrans.* 



M. impuncta is a very common fly, and most frequently the abdo- 

 men appears to be immaculate ; I therefore placed it in the genus 

 Mydcea in my annotated list, but numerous examples have the body 

 more or less distinctly spotted, and when viewed in certain lights, 

 vestiges of spots may almost always be seen on either the second or 

 third segments ; so this species really belongs to the genus Spilogaster, 

 founded, and thus defined, by Macquart, " l'abdomen toujours marque 

 de quatre taches noires, auxquelles le nom generique fait allusion. "f 



By some modern Dipterists, as Schiner and Bondani, the genus 

 Spilogaster has been enlarged, and made to include all those species 

 which I have placed in the genus Mydcea, as well as those with a 

 spotted abdomen, to the reception of which it should properly be 

 restricted. 



Bradford : November 24<th, 1888. 



Note on Lyccena Cyllarus. — On comparing the Lyccena Cyllarus from Hyeres 

 with those I took last year in the Italian Lake District, I noticed a considerable 

 difference both in size and colour. The Italian specimens are larger, the blue in the 

 males approaches in tone that of semiargus, the marginal black border is also much 

 broader. The females are of an uniform dark brown. In the Hyeres specimens, 

 blue at the base, shaded with brown towards the outer margin. On comparing the 

 specimens with the series in the British Museum Collection, I find that the Italian 

 specimens are var. tristis, a form supposed only to occur in Asia Minor. — Aibeet 

 H. Jones, Shrublands, Eltham, Kent : December 1st, 1888. 



* Dipt. Scand., T. iv, f. 1699. + Hist. Nat. des Insc. Dipt., T. ii, p. 294. 



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