52 



EREMOCH.ETA 



Fig. 73. — Ephippium thoracicum S 

 X 7. 



are almost always nearly bare in the female, and when the facets are enlarged on the 

 upper part of the eyes in the male they ai-e always all small and equal in the female. 

 Antennae porrect, approximated at the base (tig. 73) and really three-jointed, but the 



third joint (or tlagellum) is always annulated and 

 often to such an extent as to resemble six or more 

 joints, while there is often an apical style or a long 

 thin apical or subapical bristle (or arista). 



Thorax rather quadrangular, always more or less 

 pubescent and sometimes villose, but the pubescence 

 is always all of one nature, and there is no trace of 

 bristles or longer hairs, though occasionally strong 

 structural spines occur on the sides of the thorax 

 near the wing-base (fig. 73) ; mesopleur» with a bare 

 space for the reception of the front femora ; protho- 

 racic plate rather broad and oblong or trapezoid. 

 Scutellum unarmed, or frequently armed with one or 

 two pairs of structural spines on the margin (which 

 may varj- to three or four more or less irregiilar pairs), 

 and these are proved to be structural by the ordinary 

 pubescence of the disc being continued on to the tip 

 of the spines (fig. 74). 



Abdomen composed of from five to seven or even 

 eight obvious segments, usually ovate and sometimes 

 flattened {Pachygastrince, Clitellanme, and Stratio- 

 miiince), but sometimes elongate and with almost 

 ])arallel sides (Sargiiue, Berincf, and Xylomyince) : 

 colour usually blackish, and often with bright yellow 

 {Oxycera, Strafiomys, etc.) or gi-eenish {Odontomyia, Oxycern, etc.) spots or mark- 

 ings, or with conspicuous white markings in the male {Xemotelust) which are absent 

 in the female, or with conspicuous reddish orange coloring 

 (Berts), and brilliantly gTeen in all our British Sargince. 

 Pubescence slight or moderate, never concealing the gi-ound 

 colour and all of one nature, as there are no traces of bristles 

 or even long hairs. 



Legs of normal shape and size, fairly strong and entirely 

 destitute of any bristles or unusual ornamentation (except 

 a serration beneath the hind femora in some Xylomyimi-), 

 never thickly pilose, though a moderate pubescence may 

 occur on the femora ; front coxte not unusually long : tibiae 

 without any spurs except in the Xylomyince and in a 

 few Beriiue. Pulvilli and the pad-like empodium apparently forming three almost 

 equal pulvilli 



Wings with either the peculiar characteristic venation of Stratiomys (fig. 70) and 

 its allied genera, in which the anterior veins as far as the end of the cubital vein 

 are crowded together on the fore part of the wing and the posterior veins are 

 remarkably faint, or with almost the normal venation of this group of families but 

 "with the prrefurca ( = the common stem of the radial and cubital veins) commencing 

 almost opposite the base of the discal cell, except in the Xyloniyiiup (fig. 75), and 

 this character (as far as the Eremoch.eta are concerned) is peculiar to the 

 Stratiomyidce with the exception of a few Cyrtidn- ; costal vem not reaching to 

 the tip of the wing and with no ambient vein after it, or with the ambient (or costal) 

 vein extended almost to the wing-tip (Berincc), or with the ambient vein extended 

 in the aberrant Xylomyinit far beyond the wing-tip to the end of the second veinlet 

 from the discal cell ; mediastinal, subcostal, and radial veins crowded together 

 (except in the Xylomyiiuf-) ; cubital vein simple, or more commonly forked but with 

 the fork always commencing long after the end of the discal cell and its upper 

 branch ending in the costa long before the wing-tip, while the lower branch also 

 ends before the wing-tip except in Xylomyince ; discal vein always enclosing a discal 

 cell, though the lower margin of the cell may anastomose with a portion of the 

 upper branch of the postical vein : discal cell emitting two, three, or apparently four 

 veinlets to or towards the posterior ^^•ingmargin, but after exckiding the last one 

 when it happens to be the upper branch of the postical vein there are normally three 

 veinlets, because when only two are visible (Pachygasfer, Berts, etc.) it is the third 



Fig. 74.— 

 Beris ehalybeata (J. 



