1920.] 33 



Some years ago wlien studying large numbers of exotic species I 

 had occasion to examine critically the British species, as being typical 

 European forms, and I have put together these notes as likely to be of 

 some help to those who restrict their study to our own fauna. So far 

 as possible they are meant to supplement the excellent descriptions of 

 Edward Saunders. 



Apokus Spin. 



This appears to me to be a very distinct genus, as Avas held l)y 

 Smith, and by Saunders until he followed Kohl. In some good and 

 well-named collections I have found the entirely black variety of 

 Evagetes S figuring as Aporiis, but in the latter the 6 has the 

 3rd antennal joint extraordinarily short, not longer than its greatest 

 apical width. The second recurrent nervure is normally either inter- 

 stitial with the outer transverse cubitus or is received just beyond the 

 2nd cubital cell. In Evagetes normall}' it is received a little way within 

 this cell. The 6th ventral segment is very deeply excised, the excision 

 deeper than wide, with a microscopic spine on each side at the apex and 

 another pair on the sides of the excision near its middle. (In Evagetes 

 the emargination of the 6th ventral segment is wide and subti'ianguhir, 

 and much less deep, with a pair of microscopic spines placed one on 

 each side of the base of the emargination.) The apical ventral segment 

 ii^ narrow, much compressed so as to be cariniform, the sides rounded at 

 the base and then subconvergent towards the apex. The 2 Aporus, 

 apart from its other characters, is quite remarkable for the short front 

 tarsi, unlike those of any other of our Psammocharidae, the second joint 

 being as wide at the apex as its median length, and there is no tarsal 

 comb or pecten, but only extremely short spines. Why Ashmead 

 characterizes it as having a tarsal comb and a propodeum " more or less 

 distinctly produced Into conical teeth or spines " I cannot understand. 



Evagetes Lep. 



In spite of its (normally) different neuration E. hicolor is really 

 very closely allied to P. pectinipes, but to no other of our species of 

 Psammochares. The S , however, lacks the small elongate sharp carinae 

 on each side of the base of the median carination of the apical ventral 

 segment, though, if this be extracted, a minute structure more in the 

 nature of a spine will be found at the extreme base in Evagetes. In 

 the latter, too, the third antennal joint is unusually short (though less 

 so than In Aporus), being not much longer than the second, while in 

 P. pecfinijjes it is evidently longer proportionately. Females of 

 P. pectinipes which are aberrant in having only two cubital cells, as 



