2. TABANUS 395 



Legs blackish brown, with the tibiae brownish orange except on about the 

 last third of the front pair and at the vaguely darkened tips of the posterior 

 pairs; posterior tarsi pitchy brown, but the front pair deep black; front 

 coxae long, greyish black, and bearing abundant long yellow pubescence. 

 Pubescence behind the grey-dusted front femora dull yellowish brown and 

 dense but rather short, while there are very numerous (say one hundred) short 

 bristles in a row on the anterior margin of the broad shining deep black bare 

 transversely striate space on the underside, of which all are black except the 

 apical ten or twelve ; front tibiae with depressed short golden bristles behind, 

 with a yellow fur beneath, and with tiny black bristles on the rest ; middle 

 femora with similar pubescence to that on the front pair, but with rather 

 longer blackish pubescence beneath; middle tibiae with the tiny adpressed 

 bristles mainly glistening yellow but black on the upper side and tip; hind 

 femora with still longer blackish pubescence beneath ; hind tibiai _ with 

 conspicuous coarse dorsal ciliation which is mainly black but with a 

 few intermingled yellow hairs, but the black hairs usually predommate 

 about the tip, and the short fringe beneath is all yellow except about the tip, 

 while the other pubescence is mainly short depressed glistening^ yellow, and 

 sometimes the black hairs are inuch_ less numerous ; " touch-hairs " beneath 

 the front tarsi very small and inconspicuous. 



Wings with a brownish yellow tinge, especially towards the costa ; anterior 

 veins distinctly yellowish brown, but the subcostal vein darker. Alar squamae 

 smoky blackish with a blackish margin and a very short orange fringe ; 

 thoracal pair more brownish with a brown margin, and with the usual longer 

 tuft near the angle orange but not very conspicuous. Halteres small, blackish 

 brown with the stem and the top of the knob yellow to brownish orange. 



Very much like the male. Frontal stripe greyish yellow, narrow and very 

 slightly (if at all) contracted, about four times as long as its widest part; 

 lower callus shining black and rather long, rifle bullet shaped or triangular, 

 blunted below or often notched there, not extended outwards to the eyes but 

 extending upwards in a narrow line (the continuation of which forms the 

 middle callus) to beyond the middle of the frontal stripe ; just below the blunted 

 end of the callus indefinite darkened cross-lines from the eyes often occur ; 

 pubescence very short depressed and inconspicuous, black down the iniddle 

 but glistening yellow down the sides and across the lower part, and without 

 any trace of longer hairs about the vertex ; frontal triangle pale greyish 

 yellow and quite bare. Face and jowls all pale greyish yellow, clothed 

 on the cheeks with fairly dense but not long pale yellowish pubescence ; jowls 

 with rather longer similar pubescence ; middle part of the face bare ; back 

 of the head hollowed out but with a narrow equal bare rim against the 

 eyes which is yellowish grey and behind which is an obvious though short 

 dull yellow ciliation, but this ciliation is interrupted at the vertex where there 

 are some shorter black and yellow hairs ; absolute back of the head with 

 soft yellowish white pubescence ; ocellar tubercle absent, and its place on the 

 vertex not even darkened. Palpi with the second joint elongate yellow or 

 brownish yellow, abruptly bent soon after its base and thickest at the bend, 

 after which the joint only gradually tapers to a rounded tip, almost five times 

 as long as its broadest part and bearing sometimes all black short clepressed 

 bristles on the outside, but varying in amount down to comparatively few 

 of the bristles being black on the lower part of the outside and the rest silky 

 yellow, while practically no longer yellow hairs occur beneath about the 

 base ; basal joint dark grey, almost covered with yellow dust and bearing 

 abundant long yellow pubescence. Eyes unicolorous, in life bright coppery 

 green, quite bare ; facets all equally small. Antennae sometimes as black as 

 in the male, but usually considerably reddish except on the style-like portion ; 

 third joint with only minute black bristles on the top of the hump. 



Thorax almost as in the male but brighter, and the grey stripes more 

 obvious especially when viewed from behind ; pubescence shorter, and the 

 depressed thin grey hairs more obvious (unless rubbed off") ; the black tufts 

 of pubescence on the ferruginous pra^alar calli and the yellow depressed 

 patches above the wing-base and outside the postalar calli rather con- 

 spicuous ; pleurEe with all greyish yellow pubescence. Scutellum with 



