300
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Essex Diptera: an Appeal for Records
By R. M. Payne, F.R.E.S.
(49 Galton Road, Westcliff)
Comparatively little attention has ever been given to the
true flies (Diptera) of Essex. As long ago as 1888 E. Brunetti
appealed in this journal for assistance in compiling a list of the
flies of Epping Forest, but apparently met with scant response,
since the only outcome was a short paper in the 1890 issue,
listing barely 50 species for the Forest, and these confined to
only a few of the more prominent families of Diptera. In 1901
G. H. Verrall published his massive monograph on the hover-
flies (Syrphidae), and this included a number of records for
Essex. But the real landmark in the history of Essex dipterology
is 1903, when the first volume of the Victoria History of the
County of Essex appeared, containing W. H. Harwood's list of
Diptera known from the county.
Although the Harwood list is almost entirely unlocalised, its
author made it clear that practically all the records were from
the Colchester area—his home ground—so that even for that
period it does not give a representative picture of Essex flies as
a whole. Moreover, its coverage of the order was inevitably
very uneven. Thus in the Syrphidae, virtually the only family
for which good keys were then available, Harwood was able to
record 110 species, about half the British fauna. In contrast,
his list included only 12 crane-flies, out of the British total of
some 300 species. Altogether he listed 381 species of flies from
the county, roughly 7 per cent of the British Dipterous fauna.
In the 67 years that have elapsed since the publication of
the Victoria County History, no concerted work has been done
to augment the Essex list. Verrall's 1909 volume on the Brachy--
cera contained only three additional Essex records, and since then
there have been scattered notes in the entomological journals
and in the transactions of local societies, but only a handful of
additional species has been recorded for the county, apart from
the family Tipulidae, in which my paper in last year's Essex
Naturalist brought the county total to 112 species.
So there is clearly a great deal of field work to be done before
we can attempt to produce an up-to-date list of Essex Diptera.
However, in recent years adequate keys have for the first time
become available for a good many of the more conspicuous and
attractive groups of flies, and there is ample scope here for
entomologists, and indeed naturalists in general, to take up a
new and rewarding study. Flies are so abundant in comparison
with most other orders of insects that there is no harm in collect-
ing them for identification purposes; they can be found in the
adult stage over a long period of the year; and the gaps in our
knowledge of their distribution and habits are so considerable