520 BOMBYLIDiE 



different groups of species are parasitic upon different orders of insects or 

 at any rate on widely different groups. Specimens of Hyalanthrax have 

 been bred several times, and always from the larvae of Noctvidcc belonging 

 to or near the genus Agrotis ; Thy ridanthrax {Anthrax^ fciiestralis as 

 Kunckel d'Herculais calls it, probably through a mistake for A. fenestrahbs 

 (which is not at all likely to occur in Algeria,- being replaced there by 

 some allied species which would probably be A. 2'>erspiciUaris Loew), has 

 been bred in considerable numbers from a Locust (Ocnerodcs), and Kunckel 

 d'Herculais has published a detailed history of its metamorphoses; but 

 A. fenestratus is also said to have been bred from the Bee, 3Ief/achile 

 muraria. Anthrax (sensu stricto) morio is said to have been ])red from 

 aculeate Hymenoj)Ura {Osmia, Mef/achile, and Odynerus. Considerably 

 over a hundred species of Anthrax have been recorded from North 

 America but none from South America; nearly fifty are recorded from 

 South Asia and more than thirty from South Africa, but I believe com- 

 paratively few from Australasia. 



Synonymy. — The genus Anthrax was founded by Scopoli in 1763 for 

 the coal-black A. 7norio, and, although his generic characters are as usual 

 hopelessly unrecognisable, A. morio (if correctly identified by Scopoli) 

 would be the type of the genus, and consequently Loew would not have 

 been justified in founding a genus Hemipentlies for that species; moreover 

 Osten Sacken has shown that Loew's principal character for Hemip)enth6s 

 is not distinctive from Anthrax (sensu stricto). Other authors have 

 noticed the distinctness of Hyalanthrax, though they have not defined the 

 characters so clearly as Osten Sacken, and consequently Asjnlopfrra of 

 Kunckel d'Herculais may be taken as a synonym ; Villa of Lioy was 

 founded in a paper which does not come within the range of scientific 

 literature, Lioy's own countryman, Eondani, saying of it " c'est de la pocsie." 

 Bezzi (Zeitschr. Hymen. Dipt., ii., 192, 1902) has contended that Scopoli's 

 A. morio was not the same as Linne's species but was Aryyramceha anthrax, 

 and that consequently the present genus Aiithrax (after shedding Hcmi- 

 penthes) is without a name, or should be known by the name of Hemi2JGnthcs. 



Table of Species. 



1 (2) Wings with extensive dark markings in which are hyaline spots 



(Thy rid anthrax). 1 fenestratus. 



2 (1) Wings at most only brownish on the foremargin (Hyalanthrax). 



3 (4) Abdomen of the male without bands, of the female with only three 



distinct bands. Hind tibise with a dorsal fringe of conspicuous 

 splayed-out black scales. 



Largest species, coininon on coast sandhills. Wings with the fore- 

 marginal browning limited to the costal and subcostal cells. 



2 Paniscus. 



4 (3) Abdomen of the male banded, of the female with five distinct 



bands. Hind tibise without any splayed-out black scales. 



5 (6) Wings with the foremarginal browning limited to the costal and 



subcostal cells. 



Smaller species, occurring on shrubby slopes of chalk hills. Male 

 with only three distinct pale abdominal bands. 



3 cingulatus. 



