HuTTON. — On Neiu Zealand Neuroptera. 229 



narrow ; fore wings dingy- white, with numereus pale-brown 

 dots, which are mostly on the pale testaceous veins ; mar- 

 ginal region of the fore wings with twelve transverse veins 

 (Walker). Length of the body, 28 mm. ; expanse of the 

 wings, 76 mm. 



Locality, — New Zealand. 



Family MYEMELEONTID^. 



The ant-lions have their wings much reticulated, the 

 apical space with regular oblong cellules. The antennae are 

 generally clavate, and the legs are all similar. The larva is 

 terrestrial, living in sand, where it makes conical hollows, at 

 the bottom of which it lives. 



Genus Myemeleon, Linne (1748). 



Antennae short, clavate or subclavate. Abdomen long and 

 slender. 



Distribution. — Widely spread in warm latitudes. 



Myrmeleon acutus. 



Myrmeleon acutus, Walker, Cat. Neuroptera Brit. Mus., 

 p. 377 (1853). M. novce-zealandice, Colenso, Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst., vol. 17, p. 156 (1885). 



Black, slender, slightly tinged with grey ; head yellow 

 towards the mouth, with a yellow spot on each side of the 

 face and a yellow streak by the base of each antenna ; palpi 

 tawny ; antennae wanting. Abdomen much shorter than the 

 wings ; legs black, femora beneath towards the base, and 

 hind tibiae yellow. Wings slightly grey, long, very narrow, 

 sHghtly pointed ; pterostigma pale-yellow ; veins black with 

 yellow bands ; subcostal areolets simple, their veins forked at 

 intervals from one-third of the length of the wing to the 

 pterostigma, where there is a dark-brown spot ; rows of dark- 

 brown spots along the radius and its sector, and along the 

 cubitus and its fork ; small brown spots on the forks of the 

 marginal veins and on the gradate veinlets towards the tip of 

 the wing and along the hind border ; a larger brown spot at 

 the tip of the fork of the cubitus and another by the last of 

 the quadrate areolets between the first sector of the radius 

 and the cubitus ; hind wings a little shorter and narrower 

 than the fore wings, with a few brown dots towards the tip 

 and along the hind border. Length of the body, 30 mm. ; 

 expanse of the wings, 71 mm. {Walker.) 



Locality. — North Island of New Zealand. 



This, or another species, is also found near Nelson, and 

 occasionally as far south as Christchurch. 



