884 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



pendages black, pubescent under the lens, as long as the penultimate abdomi- 

 nal joint, regularly curved inwards and downwards from their middle, robust, 

 with no tubercle above at their base, obtuse at their tips, with a broad lamina 

 beneath, semiovally emarginate in its middle, which commences in an oblique 

 truncation at their base and terminates in a square truncation at thrae quar- 

 ters of the distance to their tips, the tip of the lamina being as wide as any 

 part of it ; about five small acute spines outside opposite the tip of tbe lamina ; 

 no appearance of any pencil of hairs at the base of the lamina, other than the 

 general pubescence of the whole appendage. Inferior appendages, about one- 

 third the length of the superiors, black, slender, cylindrical, with a basal 

 enlargement, curving inwards and upwards so as to touch at their tips, trun- 

 cate at tip, and attaining the middle of the lamina of the superior ones. Legs 

 black, trochanters and coxae pale brown ; femora brown interiorly and poste- 

 riorly ; tibiae on their basal half brown, except inferiorly. Wings hyaline, not 

 glittering; pterostigma small, pale brown, twice as long as wide, surmounting 

 one and three-quarters cells before, one and a half ceUs behind ; anterior 

 wings with a pale brown, semi-transparent, basal spot, commencing abruptly 

 on the posterior edge of the median space, not extending beyond the arc, 

 except very obscurely along the median space, and gradually fading away on 

 the longitudinal centre of the basal space ; posterior wings with a similar spot 

 commencing similarly, extending about two cross-veins beyond the arc with 

 an obscure narrow prolongation along the median vein, and fading away 

 gradually between the costal and sub-costal veins ; at their extreme tip a very 

 faint brown cloud, scarcely perceptible ; veins and cross-veins of all four wings 

 black, except those in the region covered by the basal spots, and the median 

 vein nearly as far as the nodus, which are pale brown ; all the brown cross- 

 veins behind the median vein in both wings distinctly but narrowly bordered 

 with sub-hyaline. Anterior wing with antecubitals 23 24, postcubitals 31. 

 Posterior wing with antecubitals 22 23, postcubitals 28 30. 



Length of body rf 48 mill. Alar exp. <$ 59 mill. Length abdomen $ 38 

 mill. ; medial breadth mill. Length of superior pterostigma nearly 1 mill. ; 

 of inferior mill. The quadrangle has 4 6 cross-veins ; the basal space 4 

 5. The postcostal space of the anterior wing has at least three irregular ranks 

 of cells, except at its base. Described from one very mature ^ ; 9 unknown. 



Of the twenty-seven described species of Hetaerina, not a single one, except 

 when quite immature, has, like this species, the basal spot of the $ anterior 

 wings, other than some shade of sanguineous. Several of them have the 

 basal spot of the $ posterior wings brown (sanguinea, rosea, mortua, ?nacropus 

 and tricolor) ; and eight others have it either reddish brown or some mixed 

 color (hebe, auripennis, caja, carnifex, proximo,, simplex (mature), crueniata and 

 feesa). It is stated, as one of the characters of the subgenus Eetcerina, that 

 all the four wings of the $ have a red basal spot. (Monographic des Caloptery- 

 gines, p. 97.) Now that a species has occurred with no red. basal spot at all 

 on any of its wings, it will probably be necessary to modify the subgeneric 

 definition. 



Another point in which our insect differs from all other known Eetcerince, i3 

 that the basal spot of the anterior tf wing starts from the postcostal vein, 

 leaving the entire postcostal space hyaline. In all the twenty-seven described 

 species, this spot, for at least half its length, touches the posterior margin ; 

 and in carnifex, proximo, cruentata, vulnerata, moribunda and occisa it touches it 

 for its entire length. 



There is a remarkable similarity between rupinsulensis and tricolor, a rare 

 species which occurs in the United States, but they are sufficiently distin- 

 guished, not only by the above points, but by tricolor being slightly more 

 robust than Americana, whereas, rupinsulensis is decidedly slenderer on placing 

 the two side by side ; by the superior ^ anal appendages of rupinsulensis being 

 unlike those of tricolor, as figured and described in the " Monographie Calopt.,'' 



[Sept. 



