2. LEPTIS 265 



some slightly less tiny bristles form rows down all the tibite ; front tarsi with 

 a few "touch-hairs" beneath, and the middle tarsi with a few very small 

 stouter plantar bristles ; middle and hind tibife each with two nearly equal 

 dull orange spurs, and front tibiae with almost a circlet of tiny black bristles 

 around the tip. Fulvilli and claws brownish. 



Wings (fig. 187) large and long, slightly smoky and conspicuously 

 maculated, the stigma being elongate and blackish brown and occupying 

 most of the end part of the marginal cell but not the lower or apical margins 

 of it, while the other cloudings extend across the cross-veins (including the fork 

 of the cubital vein) and occupy the whole apical sixth of the wing, though the 

 margin of this last cloud is not very determinate but extends less broadly 

 all along the hindmargin ; sometimes also the fork at the origin of the 

 cubital vein and the base of the praefurca are clouded ; costal and sub- 

 costal veins brownish yellow, but the other veins almost black ; the 

 costa bears at its base minute croAvded black bristles which gradually 

 diminish and disappear before the tip of the wing, after which they modify 

 into a short fine ciliation round the hindmargin ; the subcostal vein also bears 

 similar minute bristles on its upper side, but not from the base until a little 

 before the humeral cross-vein, and these bristles grow gradually shorter 

 until they coalesce with the minute costal bristles ; anal cell rather widely 

 open, because the anal vein is a little curved down at its tip. Squamas (alar) 

 rather large, somewhat glassy yellowish, with an almost blackish margin and 

 with a long pale fringe ; thoracal squamce only represented by the bare 

 yellow frenum. Halteres dull orange. 



$ . Similar to the male. Frons greyish orange, about one-fifth the width of the 

 head at the vertex but gradually widening downwards, and the space between 

 the eyes near the mouth nearly one-third the width of the head ; back of 

 the head (especially on the upper part) appearing more infiated because 

 the eyes are smaller, more oliviously pale grey, and Avith more numerous and 

 more extended short black bristles near the upper part ; frons apparently 

 bare, though a very few irregular minute black bristles may occur ; ocellar 

 space blackish. Palpi with mainly l:)lack bristles but with some pale hairs 

 at the sides and about the tip. 



Thorax paler or more yellowish grey, with three broad dark stripes which 

 may range from blackish to light brown with a blackish stripe splitting the 

 middle one ; side stripes narrower than the middle one and more abbreviated 

 in front, but all three stripes ending in points just before the hindmargin. 



Abdomen less sharply marked and considerably more blackish, especially 

 towards the tip and about the sidemargins, and the pubescence about the 

 sides shorter. Belly blackish, but usually orange at the base, on the sides of 

 the second and third segments, and on the narrow hindmargins of segments, 

 though not uncommonly the orange colour is reduced to the narrow hind- 

 margins. Ovipositor ending in a pair of conspicuous though small oval 

 brownish black lamellae. 



Legs as in the male. 



Wings usually with the maculation more emphasised and the cloud on the 

 wing-tip more defined. 



Length about 10 mm., but varying from 7 mm. to 14 mm. 



The foregoing is a description of what I consider normal British L. 

 scoloimcea, but the species seems to have a tendency to produce local races, 

 and some of these races have a very distinct appearance. Dr J. H. Wood 

 has taken regularly a small dark race at Shobdon Marsh in Herefordshire, 

 and I have studied specimens taken there on July 23, 1903 ; the 

 male seems to have the palpi rather shorter, less drooping, and less 

 conspicuously yellowish, but bearing more black bristles; the antennse 

 more tinged with blackish on the basal joints, and the third joint 

 comparatively short; thorax with the humeri darker and the connected 

 pale lines hardly visible; scutellum not at all ferruginous at the tip^ 



