294 Transactions. 



$. Eyes bare, holoptic for a short distance in front of ocpJlar triangle, 

 which is black with black hairs ; ocelli brick-red. Front ochreous with 

 scattered black hairs which extend on to face on each side ; lunular area 

 brownish ; orbital margins narrowly blackish-brown. In profile the head 

 is rather flat above to where the front descends to the antennae, which are 

 somewhat elongated and sometimes surrounded with orange-yellow at the 

 base ; 1st and 2nd joints brownish and short ; 3rd joint reddish-brown or 

 yellow and elongate oval ; arista brown and pubescent. Face thinly clothed 

 with erect short black hairs ; face pale yellow with a greenish tinge and 

 a median blackish-brown stripe on lower half to oral margin, which is 

 margined with blackish-brown ; in profile the face is arched and produced 

 at the knob (fig. 5) ; occiput black ; proboscis and palpi brownish-black. 



Thorax shiny black, clothed with short pale hairs ; a tawny spot clothed 

 with tawny hairs on each side of dorsum anterior to wing-articulation ; 

 scutellum testaceous and clothed with testaceous hairs ; halteres testaceous. 

 Wings faintly tinged ; the veins and stigma blackish - brown. Legs 

 testaceous but paler at the knees and basal half of tibiae ; tarsi, particularly 

 the posterior, fuscous. 



Abdomen elongate, comparatively broad at the base, and somewhat 

 narrowing between the 3rd and 4th segments ; black, but to a great extent 

 occupied by a pair of testaceous spots on the 2nd segment, a smaller pair 

 on the 5th, and by two broad testaceous bands, one across the 3rd segment 

 and the other across the 4th (fig. 12) ; genital segments blackish -brown 

 except the 9th, which is tawny ; 6th, 7th, and 8th clothed with scattered 

 delicate hairs. 



o . Length, 8 mm. 



Holotype : $, No. 1231, D. M 



Habitat. — Dunedin. 



Genus Lepidomyia Loew (1864). 



The following species was originally described by Hutton as a Melano- 

 stoma, but it clearly does not belong to that genus, from which it is 

 distinguished by the following features : Body robust, immaculate and 

 hairy ; antennae elongate ; eyes densely haired ; face tuberculate at oral 

 margin ; posterior femora thickened and bristly below ; posterior tibiae 

 broadened apically and their protarsi somewhat thickened. 



L. decessum. (Plate XLVII, figs. 1, 2.) 

 Melayiostoma decessum Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 33, p. 43 (1901). 



A shiny blue-black robust fly with the abdomen ovate and no colour- 

 pattern. 



$. Eyes clothed with short whitish hairs ; front angulated at a trans- 

 verse central depression, shiny blue-black and densely clothed with short 

 brownish hairs ; lower frontal orbits silvery in certain lights. Antennae 

 (fig. 6) black, with a lighter reflection ; 3rd joint elongate, reaching well 

 down the face, which is vertical in profile and tuberculate at oral margin 

 (fig. 7). Face shiny blue-black, covered with a silvery tomentum ; a silvery 

 pubescence along facial orbits ; cheeks black and clothed with silvery hairs ; 

 proboscis and palpi brownish-black. 



Thorax and scutellum shiny blue-black with a greenish tinge, and clothed 

 with a scattered white pubescence which becomes longer on the pleurae and 

 is replaced by long hairs around the coxae ; 2 areas of short white haiis 

 on anterior margin of dorsum just posterior to the head ; scutellum "with. 



