May, 1912.] 97 



Rufa. This is a scarce, species. It was described from three 

 females taken in my home district, in May and June of different 

 years. Mr. Malloch has also sent it me from Scotland, but he too had 

 only taken the female, and the male still remains to be discovered. 



Projecfa, Beck. A widely distributed and fairly common species. 

 On one occasion recently Mr. Collin sent me a male Aphiochxta, which 

 seemed in no way to differ from a pale projeda, except that it had the 

 palpi of a female instead of the peculiar ones which give the insect its 

 name. I was inclined to look upon it as an aberrant male, with the 

 palpi of the female. The subsequent capture by myself of three or 

 four others exactly similar made such an explanation most improbable, 

 and led to the search for some other character that would confirm it 

 as a good species. This was found in the position of the supra- 

 antennal bristles, apparently a small and almost trivial character in 

 itself, yet one, I feel sure, of great importance, on account of it being 

 uninfluenced by sex and subject, in my experience, to little or no 

 variation. In the new species, for which I propose the name simulans, 

 the upper pair of bristles are in exact alignment with the inner bristles 

 of the middle frontal row, and have the inner pair, of good size, 

 directly underneath them, whilst in projecfa these same bristles are 

 closely approximated, that is, well inside that alignment, and the 

 under ones are relatively smaller. Armed with this knowledge, I 

 revised my series of projeda, picking out the females with widely 

 separated bristles. This done, I found that all the selected females 

 (three in number) agreed in having a yellow thorax and a brown or 

 reddish-brown abdomen (simnlans) , whereas in those left behind (true 

 projeda) the thorax was dark with only a tinge of red, and the 

 abdomen black. It seems, therefore, very questionable whether the 

 female projeda^ ever has a yellow variety as ascribed to it in the text. 



Fig. 2. A. projects, <S x 40. 'Pig. 3. A. simulans, S X 40. 



Simnlans, n. sp., ^ ? . Closely allied to projeda, but differing in 

 the following points : — 



Thorax red {$), yellow ( ? ) ; abdomen brown, more yellowish behind {$), 

 brown or reddish brown ( ? ) ; antennae brown ( <? ), red ( ? ) ; the clear yellow 



