96 STRATIOMYID^ 



little upwards on to the disc and forwards to the wing-base and l)eliind 

 almost to the yellow scutellum ; in one specimen there is a pair of small 

 orange spots near the centre of the disc ; pubescence on the pleurae reduced 

 to a few pale hairs on the front and back parts. Scutellum bright yellow and 

 practically bare ; spines orange ; metanotum shining black. 



Abdomen shining black but rather dulled on the disc through the crowded 

 coarse punctuation ; the third and fourth segments bear on the sides large 

 yellow spots which are connected along the sidemargins with the yellow tip, 

 and this yellow tip is equal all across and does not extend triangularly on to 

 the disc ; the yellow sidemargins extend up on to the hind corner of the 

 second segment ; pubescence very short, black and stubby on the disc but 

 jtale about the tip, and longer and pale about the basal corners. Belly (in 

 life) yellow with blackish bands across the third, fourth, and fifth segments 

 and sometimes less distinctly across the second and sixth, the bands on the 

 third and fourth segments being broadest ; pubescence very short and very 

 scattered, bristly and apparently all black. Uenitalia yellow. 



Legs (including coxje, trochantei's and even last joint of all tarsi) entirely 

 yellow, so that only the claws are black. Pubescence almost absent, but 

 some short very inconspicuous pale hairs occur l)ehind the femora. 



Wings (fig. 108) hyaline, but the mediastinal and subcostal cells and the 

 stigma yellowish ; stigma at its outer end margined so strongly as to almost 

 indicate a fork of the cubital vein ; anterior veins pale yellow but distinct ; 

 hyaline part of the marginal cell after the stigma longer than the stigma. 

 Squamae (alar) small and blackish with light grey fringes ; frenum blackish. 

 Halteres orange. 



9 . Frons mainly yellow l>ut with the middle of the top of the vertex broadly 

 black, and with a black broad rather irregular stripe extending from that 

 down the middle of the frons to the antennae, and also a narrower black line 

 sloping from the Ijlack vertex forwards to the upper frontal corner of each 

 eye ; all the face and jowls black as well as the absolute back of the head 

 (connected with the black vertical space), but there is a broad shining clear 

 yellow postocular collar ; there is some short whitish pubescence on the lower 

 part of the back of the head, but nowhere else on the head. Eyes in life 

 dark reddish brown with greenish reflections, and with a rather narrow 

 almost equal purple band just above the middle extending all across except 

 close to the hindmargin. 



Thorax shining black, but the yellow markings almost predominate as 

 they only leave three broad l)lack lines and two black spots ; the middle 

 black line is broad and extends from the extreme front of the thorax (where 

 it extends all across) to the hindmargin ; the side lines are rather close to 

 the middle one but are much shortened anteriorly, and the middle line is 

 widened out considerably before the hindmargin so that the three black lines 

 coalesce ; above the wing-base (but margined anteriorly by the suture) there 

 is on each side a rather large roundisli black spot, and in dark specimens this 

 spot is connected with the black side lines, and the line of the suture seems 

 to narrowly connect the three middle lines ; pleurae black on all their lower 

 l)art, but yellow on the upper part and on the upper part of the hypopleurae. 

 Pubescence as in the male. 



Abdomen black with the margin yellow all round (including the side- 

 margins of the two Ijasal segments), and this margin widening out on to the 

 disc of the third and fourth segments (but less so on the second) sometimes 

 in a broadly rounded manner and sometimes pointedly triangular, and some- 

 times widened at the tip. Belly with the black bands smaller. Ovipositor 

 Avith the lamellae all orange. 



Legs, wings, etc., as in the male. 



Length about 3-25 mm. 



This species is well distinguished by its simple cubital vein, its 

 brilliantly shining thorax, and its entirely pale scutellum and legs ; but I 

 possess a male of an undescribed closely allied species from probably 

 Central Asia which has the front tarsi almost all blackish brown. The 



