626 ASILID.^ 



" then the distinctive characters selected by me should be rejected and 

 " these others substituted." 



While fully recognising the comparative unimportance of the dis- 

 tinctions given at present betw^een several of the genera of Asilince, I 

 retain them for the reasons given by Loew, and though some species 

 cannot be allocated without the knowledge of both sexes yet even then 

 it is a gain to be able to locate a specimen somewhere in (say) one out 

 of two comparatively small genera instead of leaving it in an unarranged 

 genus of several hundred species. In proof of this it may be seen that 

 Pandelle's revision of the French species of the comprehensive genus 

 Asilus has left several of his new species incertce scdis, while their 

 identification might have been simple if they had been correctly allocated 

 to the smaller genera. In Kertesz's " Katalog " Philonicus is retained as 

 distinct from the comprehensive genus Asilus on account (I presume) of 

 the circlet of spines on the female ovipositor, but I fail to comprehend 

 why the line is drawn at this single sexual character. 



Table of the Palcearctic Genera of AsiLiN^. 



1 (52) Arista bare. 



2 (7) Three submarginal cells (fig. 346), the third one being formed 



by the upper branch of the cubital fork throwing back from 

 near its base a recurrent veinlet which extends until it 

 unites with the radial vein so as to make the latter appear 

 to be forked soon after the emission of the cubital vein, while 

 the commencement of the upper branch of the cubital fork 

 resembles a cross-vein, 



3 (4) Base of the second submarginal cell ( = the cubital fork) not nearly 



reaching back to the end of the discal cell (fig. 346). 



Fig. 346. — Promachus Uoiiinus (J. x 6. 



Plump, more or less hairy flies. Abdomen conical, moderately 

 elongate so that the folded wings as a rule hardly reach its tip and 

 only exceed it in the males (genitalia in both sexes excluded). Legs 

 rather strong but not stout. Ovipositor without a terminal circlet 

 of spines. 



Promachus. 



4 (3) Base of the second submarginal cell ( = the cubital fork) reaching 

 at least as far back as the end of the discal coll. 



