72 STRATIOMYID.E 



bristle arises. Belly shining black, with more conspicuous short depressed 

 blackish to greyish pubescence. Genitalia small. 



Legs rather obscure pale yellow even to the last joint of the tarsi, but 

 the femora all Ijlack except at the exti'eme tip ; coxaj black ; trochanters 

 brownish ; hind tibiae sometimes obscurely darkened except at the tip. Pu- 

 bescence practically none, though a short inconspicuous ciliation exists behind 

 the anterior femora. 



Wings with a rather inconspicuous (or sometimes conspicu.ous) blackish 

 tinge on about the basal two-fifths, but pale yellowish hyaline on the rest 

 especially at the stigma ; veins on the blackish part blackened up to 

 the end of the basal cells ; radial and cubital veins yellower and thicker 

 than the faint pale yelloAv veins on the apical pai't of the wing ; cubital vein 

 forked well beyond the middle of the costal margin of the submarginal cell. 

 Squamae brownish yellow to greyish black with short greyish black fringes. 

 Halteres dull brownish black, but the base of the stem dull orange. 



$ . Frons shining black, with a longitudinal middle channel ; frons about one- 

 fourth the width of the head at the top and scarcely or only very gradually 

 narrowing clown almost to the antennae ; above the base of each antenna is a 

 rather silvery patch, but the frons has a scattered erect dark pubescence which 

 is so minute that it may be overlooked ; back of the head moderately inflated, 

 slightly more so on the lower than on the upper part, shining black and 

 apparently bare, because any pubescence is so exceedingly minute. Antenna; 

 with the third joint much larger than in the male, dull brownish or even 

 quite orange, with the annulations rather distinct. 



Thorax and scutellum so densely and coarsely punctate that they are 

 almost dull black ; humeri in perfect specimens with a chestnut dot, but the 

 postalar calli black. Pubescence light grey, very tiny and decumbent on 

 the disc, but more obvious on the scutellum and on the lower part of the 

 pleurse. 



Abdomen as in the male, but the ovipositor long, narrow, and brownish. 



Legs as in the male, but there is short pubescence on the middle femora, 

 and more obvious minute pale pubescence on the hind tibiae. 



Wings as in the male. 



Length about 3-75 mm. 



This species varies a little in the colour of the antennae and tibise, but 

 may always be easily distinguished from P. atra by its larger and more 

 robust appearance and by the shape of the head. It shows some relation- 

 ship to P. orhitalis in the slight silvery gloss on the frons just above the 

 antennae, but is easily distinguished by the touching eyes of the male and 

 by the absence of the silvery sides of the face in both sexes, and also by the 

 darkened basal part of the wing. A curious variety of the female was 

 taken in the New Forest by Miss M. A. Sharp, in July 190-4, in which 

 the fork of the cubital vein is so indistinct as to be almost absent ; the 

 length and direction of the cubital vein and the size at once distinguish it 

 from P. minutissima. 



P. tarsalis was introduced by me as a British species in 1886 from a 

 female without liistory in the late Mr Wilson Saunders' collection ; and 

 Dr D. Sharp recorded (Entom. Mo. Mag., Sept. 1903) three specimens 

 caught in the New Forest in the summer of 1903 on an old broken Beech 

 (Fagus); several females were again taken in July 1904 and bred in 

 considerable numbers in subsequent years, and in 1907 Dr Sharp bred 

 several specimens from larvae found on Pine (Pinus) at Nethy Bridge. 

 There is a female in the British Museum which was bred from rotten 

 l*oplar (Poimlus) on June 18, 1898, by Mr A. Beaumont, and Lundbeck 

 says the larvae occur also on "oaks and apple-trees." A male bred indoors 

 by Dr Sharp in 1905 appeared as early as April 30. It is recorded 

 from southern Sweden to middle Germany. 



