6. STRATIOMYS 155 



3. S. furcata Fabricius. Eyes of the male hairy, of the female bare 

 and with no encircling yellow band. Abdomen of both sexes with three 

 pairs of small spots and the tip whitish yellow or orange. Legs and belly 

 mainly black. 



A much duller looking species than S. chmnceleon or 

 S. potamida, and with more extensive black coloring. 



S. Head comparatively small. Face and frons forming a moderately shining- 

 black equilateral_ triangle; face considerably retreating, rather roughened, 

 slightly dusted with white at the sides, and clothed with conspicuous greyish 

 white pubescence which often gets rubbed off on the middle part ; jowls 

 black, shallow, and with some minute glistening whitish yellow adpressed 

 pubescence ; lower part of the back of the head only slightly inflated, black 

 and bearing similar glistening adpressed pubescence which lies pointing 

 forward ; upper part of the back of the head practically flush with the eyes 

 but with a rim of glistening white minute adpressed pubescence, black behind 

 and bearing some rather long obscure grey hairs which become whitish grey 

 on the upper part ; vertex black, roughened but rather shining, continued 

 forwards to the frons by two narrow rims between the eyes, and the middle 

 portion of this narrow part bears a line of rather coarse black pubescence, 

 which is not extended back to the rather shorter more scattered black 

 pubescence on tlie vertex and scarcely to the frontal pubescence; frons 

 moderately shining black with either blackish pubescence on its middle and 

 some brown hairs at the sides or with greyish black pubescence which extends 

 right up the antennal prominence to the base of the antennse ; proboscis 

 brown. Eyes rather densely clothed with long brownish pubescence ; facets 

 very sharply divided just below the middle by a slightly curved line, into 

 decidedly large ones above and much smaller ones below ; the large facets are 

 rather dull dark brown in dry specimens and the smaller ones conspicuously 

 shining black ; but in life they are dark greenish, with the lower part and a 

 band below the middle and the upper hindpart dark bluish ; the sharp 

 division of the facets extends from the front part of the eye only about three- 

 quarters of the way across so that on the back part the facets are not 

 contrasted in size. Antennae blackish brown ; basal joint about four times as 

 long as the second and about two-thirds as long as the third joint ; extreme 

 base of the third joint slightly chestnut. 



Thorax black, only moderately shining because the punctuation is very 

 dense and rather coarse ; pubescence dense and rather long, almost erect, 

 light brownish grey on all the disc or light grey when viewed from in front, 

 light grey on the pleurae and scutellum, but sparse and pale yellow on the 

 sternopleuraj, and usually with a few inconspicuous black hairs on the 

 upper part of the mesopleurai. Scutellum black with its spines and the rather 

 straight broad hindmargin between them dark orange, but the tips of the 

 spines blackish. 



Abdomen black, almost dull except on the hind part of the fourth, and all 

 the fifth, segments, with transverse dull pale yellow or almost orange spots at 

 the hind corners of the second, third, and fourth segments, and with the 

 hindmargin of the fifth segment and its middle extension upwards almost to 

 the foremargin also orange; the spots on the second segment are in the 

 absolute hind corners, and are more than twice as wide as high, and are 

 occasionally rather ovate, and they extend along the sidemargins a little on to 

 the third segment and sometimes widen out a little there ; the spots at the 

 hind corners of the third segment are very similar, but are rather more 

 directed upwards about their discal ends, and are considerably extended 

 downwards on to the fourth segment along the actual sidemargins, occasionally 

 spreading a little on to the disc near there • the fourth segment has similar 

 spots at the hind corners but the discal ends are slightly widened and 

 distinctly directed upwards so that their inmost part leaves the hindmargin 

 and slopes out rather towards the middle of the disc of the segment, and these 

 spots are narrow at the sidemargins and do not extend at all on to the side- 



