Empididae. 233 



2. H. stigmatica Schin. 

 1862. Schin. F. A. I, 83. — 1903. Kat. palaarkt. Dipt. II, 269. 



Male. Frons greyish white, epistoma white; palpi whitish. Oc- 

 ciput light grey or whitish grey, with short, pale hairs and a few 

 longer bristles. Antennæ yellow, with a very short arista; the apical 

 part of the third joint sometimes very slightly brownish. Thorax 

 lighter or daricer yellow or light brownish, with a whitish grey prui- 

 nosity; it has two distant, more or less narrow, somewhat indistinct, 

 brownish or brownish grey stripes. A notopleural and a postalar 

 bristle present, both yellow. Sciitellum with two yellow marginal 

 bristles and generally a small hair outside to them on each side. 

 Pleura yellow or light brownish, whitish grey pruinose. Abdomen 

 brownish with paler incisures, and with short, pale yellowish hairs. 

 Venter pale yellow. Genitalia with the ven tral lamella arched, but 

 not large and protruding, the upper lamellæ dark brownish, the apex 

 not excised but pointed, and the point turned a little downwards. 

 Legs yellow, the two last joints on all tarsi black or blackish brown, 

 on the front tarsi often only brown. The hairs and spines on the 

 legs quite as in the preceding species. Wings hyaline. Veins pale 

 brown. Stigma brown, the radial vein forming a distinct curve below 

 it ; discai and anal cell present, anal vein long, weak. Halteres white 

 or whitish yellow. 



Female. Agreeing with the male; the ovipositor thinner than ab- 

 domen, which is caused by the eighth segment being short, while the 

 folio wing part is thin and rather long. 



Length 3,8 — 4,5 mm. 



The species is recognised from precatoria by the lighter colour, 

 and it has also a shorter antennal arista and a more distinct curve 

 of the radial vein below the stigma. When doubt arises the genita- 

 lia give certain characters in both sexes; the ventral lamella in the 

 male genitalia is much larger, projecting and swollen in precatoria, 

 while it is much smaller and not projecting in stigmatica ; the ovipo- 

 sitor (i. e. the eighth segment and the following part) is at the base 

 as thick (high) as the end of abdomen in precatoria, but thinner 

 (lower) in stigmatica, but this latter character is not easily used, when 

 the abdomen is shrivelled by exsiccation; for the rest there is also a 

 character in the structure of the head; in precatoria the upper, hinder 

 corner of the eye is more pronounced than in stigmatica in which lat- 

 ter it is much rounded; the head is in the latter species relatively lon- 

 ger and more flattened. 



