90 STRATIOMYID^ 



the margins of the postalar calli indistinctly brownish ; pubescence blackish, 

 rather dense but of various lengths while some of it on the disc is greyish ; on 

 the pleurae the pubescence is abundant and longer and is greyish, but leaves a 

 large bare and polished triangle on the mesopleurse. Scutellum all black and 

 l)eanng short ])lack pubescence but with its pair of spines dirty orange with 

 their extreme tip (and sometimes the extreme base) blackish ; metanotum 

 all shining black. 



Abdomen shining l.)lack with only the extreme tip pale yellow, and with 

 all the disc a little obscured by very dense punctuation ; pubescence incon- 

 spicuous but fairly long about the base and sides, mostly black but dark grey 

 on the disc after about the middle. Belly shining black with sparse punctua- 

 tion, and with short sparse greyish pubescence. Genitalia i)rotruded, mainly 

 blackish but with short thick brownish yellow terminal lamellae. 



Legs black and orange ; coxai and trochanters Ijlack ; femora shining 

 black but with the tip rather broadly orange ; anterior tibige orange with 

 sometimes just a small blackish spot beneath near the middle, but the hind 

 tibiae mainly blackish with the base and tip and the upper side obscurely 

 orange ; tarsi all orange, thougli sometimes the posterior pairs have the base 

 of the two last joints blackish. Pubescence slight and inconspicuous, but a 

 slight greyish pubescence exists behind the anterior femora, near the base of 

 the hind femora, and about the coxae and trochanters. 



Wings slightly brownish, with the discal cell and its neighborhood and the 

 margin of all its veins conspicuously blackened and sometimes forming an almost 

 sharply defined blackish blotch about the discal cell, but sometimes with the 

 middle third of the costa almost blackish bi'own and spreading down as a 

 cloud across the discal cell and down the postical vein to the base of its fork 

 and even darkening the postical vein to its origin ; the other anterior veins 

 (up to the end of the cubital) rather darkened, but the hinder and outer veins 

 very faint ; cubital vein without any trace of a fork. Squamae small, blackish 

 with dark grey fringes. Halteres clear pale orange, with the base of the stem 

 blackish brown. 



9 . Frons brightly shining black with sometimes tiny orange spots almost on the 

 occiput where the swollen back of the head ends against the narrowed vertex ; 

 frons nearly half the width of the head, and with a considerable depression just 

 above the antenme and a faint narrow depressed line down the middle ; the 

 space between the eyes narrows very slightly from the vertex to a))out the 

 middle of the frons and thence widens very slightly down to the mouth, where 

 it is scarcely wider than at the top of the vertex ; pubescence on the frons 

 very short and very inconspicuous, all dark except for a few grey hairs just 

 above the antennae • face shining black, retreating, and small because the 

 antennae are placed below the middle of the head, but on the extreme eye- 

 margins there is an obscure but obvious orange streak from about the level 

 of the antennae to about half-way down the face ; pubescence on the face 

 short but rather conspicuously whitish grey; space beneath the eyes still very 

 shallow, but the back of the head from bottom to top very considerably and 

 nearly equally puffed out though slightly narrowed about the middle, and 

 all shining Idack with short inconspicuous greyish pubescence ; no longer 

 l)ubescence about the vertex. Eyes with very short, sparse, inconspicuous 

 dark pubescence ; facets all small and equal. 



Thorax colored as in the male but less coarsely punctate, and the yellow 

 side lines and the markings about the postalar calli more distinct in pale 

 specimens ; pubescence all grey and short. Scutellum entirely yellow except 

 at the extreme base and side corners or all along the actual margin. 



Abdomen as in the male, but with shorter pubescence. Ovipositor very 

 much resembling the male genitalia. 



Legs as in the male. 



Wings with the dark middle Ijlotch less conspicuous in pale specimens. 

 Squamae with paler fringes. 



Length about 5 mm. 



This species does not vary much as far as my experience goes, but 

 Loew says that it varies a good deal in the abdominal markings ; he states 



