208 [September, 



arrangements of light from that employed for the drafting of the diagnosis, the wing 

 (the spots excepted) is more translucent in about its basal three-fourths than in the 

 remaining apical region, and the membrane in the intervals of the hairs gives a 

 bluisli reflection ; the colour of tlie hair and fringes changes with the pose. The 

 four blackish hair-spots mark the ends of ranks of bristling hair, elsewhere of a light 

 yellowish-brown tint, tliat shifts to a darker brownish-grey ; between these and the 

 apical region a narrow breadth of light coloured, outward spreading hair, " shot " 

 with whitish, intervenes, forming a subtransverse fascia, commencing at the costa a 

 little before the end of the anterior radius, and interrupted at the smooth haired 

 nervures. Pubescence of head and body light yellowish-brown, shifting to light 

 flaxen-brown on the dorsum and anterior parts of the thorax, and tinted on the 

 head and notum (especially between the wings) with pale ferrugineous. Scape of 

 antenna concolorous with the head ; flagellum (dried) piceous, with very light 

 greyish hair. Integument of legs dark coloured or blackish-brown ; their indumen- 

 tum glossed on the femur, tibial fringes, apical margins of the tibia and of at least 

 the first tarsal joint, with light flaxen-brown, which gloss can be made to extend to 

 other parts or to disappear. Ovipositor pale testaceous or pale amber. Superior <J 

 genital appendages rather similar to those of P. ocellaris (16) ; the apical joint 

 styliform or subulate. Beneath, at the wing-roots, stipate scales ai'e confined almost 

 exclusively to parts of nervures within the fold of deflection, and are succeeded, for 

 only a very short distance, by flattened hairs. Season, August. 



In the net this species was distinguishable by its smallness, 

 activity, carriage of wings (that of a Pericomd), light colouring, and 

 dark spots, from other FsycliodidcB of the locality ; and the length of 

 scape of the antenna was a noticeable feature of specimens lingering 

 in the tube of the collecting-bottle. The spots are sometimes effaced 

 by wear, and then the axil of the pobrachial fork being interior to the 

 shortest line from the radial bifurcation to the end of the axillar 

 nervure, constitutes a valuable aid in the identification of the species. 

 The spots, from the radius to the axillar nervures, reinforced by 

 smoother dark hair on the praebrachial and anal nervures, present, 

 from certain standpoints, the appearance of an obtusely curved, or 

 elbowed, narrow dark fascia. 



21. Peeicoma soleata (Haliday, MS.), Walker. 



P. soleata, id., Ins. Brit. Dipt., iii, 257 (1856) ; Etn., ante, 2nd 

 ser., vol. iv, 126, step 6, and vol. v, pi. iii, P. 21. 



With a change of illumination, the wing becomes dark greyish-brown, with 

 glossy fringes to match, glossed at the apex of the wing with a ligliter colour or 

 whitish. The two large rounded spots of black bristling hair vary somewhat in 

 amplitude with the tension of the wing, or the condition of the specimen, some- 

 times diffusedly spreading outwards to the exterior limits of the bristling hair, so as 

 to constitute a broad interrupted and abrupt transverse dark band, but more 

 frequently neatly defined as spots in proximity to the forks, and well within those 



