3. OXYCERA 107 



9. O. pulchella Meigen. Cubital vein forked. Abdomen with only 

 two pairs of isolated side-spots and the tip yellow. Tibise yellow. Eyes 

 of the male conspicuously hairy. 



A large handsome species, distinguished by its five spotted 

 abdomen and its yellow tibise. 



S . Face and f rons forming a triangle (though with rather bowed sides) of which 

 the base is slightly shorter than the sides ; face black and clothed all over 

 with dense greyish black pubescence; frons black, but with a pair of con- 

 spicuous shimmering whitish (in some lights almost silvery) spots on the 

 upper part which leave the extreme top and a narrow dividing line black ; 

 lower black part of the frons bearing black pubescence but the upper part 

 (including the spots) bare ; jowls very small, but a long whitish pubescence 

 extends under the eyes round on to the moderately puffed-out lower part of 

 the back of the head ; upper partof the back of the head sunken down behmd 

 the eyes, but a long greyish yellow pubescence can be traced on the actual 

 back of the head ; vertex shining black, rather small, and bearing rather long 

 but not dense brownish yellow pubescence ; proboscis yellow. Eyes touching 

 for quite half the distance between the occiput and the antennae, densely 

 clothed with conspicuous long blackish or greyish black pubescence ; larger 

 facets on the larger upper part abruptly separated from the smaller facets on 

 the smaller lower part but not much contrasted in colour in dry specimens 

 {vide female). Antenna? rather long, brownish black ; two basal joints with 

 minute black bristles ; third joint long and bare and bearing on its fourth 

 annulation a dorsal arista which is almost as long as the annulated joint, and 

 which is orange after its blackish base. 



Thorax moderately shining black, densely and coarsely punctate, with a 

 conspicuous large yellow spot on each side extending against the dorsq-pleural 

 suture from the humeri to the transverse suture ; postalar calli conspicuously 

 yellow and the yellow colour extending a little anteriorly on to the disc ; 

 beyond these markings the humeri are yellow, and also a line along the upper 

 margin of the mesopleura? to the wing-base which widens there considerably 

 down the upper hind corner of the mesopleura?, but there are no subsequent 

 yellow markings. Pubescence ubiquitous, long, erect, and abundant (except 

 on the middle of the mesopleura?), but not obscuring the ground colour, 

 yellowish brown, but more pale yellow on the front and back parts of the 

 pleurae. Scutellum orange, with the tip of the long straight spines blackened ; 

 pubescence yellow; metanotum shining black, moderately punctate and 

 jmbescent. 



Abdomen moderately shining black, but dulled by the dense coarse 

 punctuation, and with five conspicuous yellow spots; a large yellow spot 

 slopes upwards from each hind corner of the third and fourth segments to 

 almost the front margin, and the pair of spots on the third segment are still 

 widely separated at their tips, but those on the fourth segment rather closely 

 approximate ; the spots on the third segment are larger than those on the 

 fourth ; tip of the abdomen also yellow, and none of these five yellow spots 

 are connected on the sidemargins ; pubescence on the disc minute, stubby, 

 and black, but longer and greyish about the basal corners. Belly shmmg 

 black with the middle of the disc of the second and third (and sometimes 

 the fourth) segments yellowish, but most so on the second segment, and 

 the yellow dorsal spots show over the sidemargins ; all thickly but not so 

 crowdedly punctate as on the dorsal surface ; pubescence on the basal half 

 rather long and whitish. 



Legs black and orange ; the black portion comprising the cox^, trochanters, 

 and basal five-sixths (except the extreme base) of the femora, and also the 

 last four joints of the front tarsi and the last three joints of the posterior 

 tarsi, while the hind tibiae are sometimes a little darkened about the middle ; 

 pubescence behind the anterior femora more distinct than usual m an 

 Oxycera, and all whitish. Pulvilli yellowish brown ; claws small and black. 

 'Wings (fig. 109) slightly smoky with all the veins distinctly marked ; stigma 



