Og '[February 



is from Bearsted, Kent, June 15tb, 1896 (E. E. Glreen). I believe 

 Mr. Harwood, of Colchester, found the species not uncommon in his 

 neighbourhood during the summer of ] 896. 



To judge from the present state of our collection, the rarest of 

 the British species of Micropalpus is M. comptus, Fin., of which we 

 possess only two modern specimens— a male from Bisley Common, 

 Surrey, July 18th, 1897, captured by myself, and a female from the 

 North Sutor, Cromarty, N". B., June 12th, 1894, taken by my colleague, 

 Mr. W. E. Ogilvie Grant. 



Before dismissing the question of Micropalpus pudicus, it may be 

 added that in it, as in M. vulpinus, Fin., orbital setae are confined to 

 the female, while in the case of M. comptus, Fin., they are present in 

 both sexes. 



Bbachtcoma ereatica, Mg. 



This species, described by Meigen under Tachina, was introduced as British by 

 Mr. Meade (Ent. Mo. Mag., ser. 2, vol. v, 1894, p. 110), on account of two specimens 

 ( $ and ? ) bred by Mr. C. J. Watkins, of Painswick, Grloucestershire, from pupse 

 found in borings of PempTiredon in a rotting cherry tree stump. Of the two speci- 

 mens in question, the $ was presented to Mr. Meade, while through the generosity 

 of Mr. Watkins the $ is now in the collection of the British Museum. 



After describing the species, Meade writes {loc. cit.) : " Meigen placed this 

 anomalous species, together with B. devia, in the genus Tachina, in which he was 

 followed by Schiner ; by the spotted abdomen and other characters, however, it 

 more properly belongs to Brachi/coma." But this species cannot possibly be con- 

 generic with Brachyconia devia, Fin. ; the entirely different shape of the head, as 

 seen in profile, the bare face {i. e., the absence of the row of fine setse running down 

 on each side from the end of the series of frontal bristles to the lower margin of the 

 eye), the fact that the clypeus is contracted below by the approximation of the 

 facial angles (a feature which Mr. Meade has omitted to notice), the shorter and less 

 attenuated arista, the fact that the third longitudinal vein is entirely bare (instead 

 of being clothed with setae from the base to the anterior transverse vein), and the 

 very different shape of the first posterior cell, all these are characters which, 

 severally of systematic importance, together constitute a body of evidence that 

 cannot be disregarded. It is true that Schiner (Fauna Austriaca, Diptera, i, p. 477) 

 places erratica immediately after devia, under the same tabular number, but as he 

 expressly states that he is not acquainted with either species this goes for nothing. 

 Moreover, in a foot-note (Joe. cit.), Schiner expresses his conviction that Rondani's 

 interpretation of Fallen's devia, which is the one followed by modern authors, 

 certainly refers to a distinct species. 



It is to be feared that the true systematic position of the species from Pains- 

 wick must for the present remain in doubt. Owing to the contraction of the clypeus 

 below, and the elongated claws of the $ , it works down under Brauer's system to 

 the Section ParamacronycMa {cf. Verb. z.-b. Q-es. Wien, Jahrg., 1893, p. 505), a 

 group which is largely composed of new genera ; but the trail is here lost. 



