688 ASILID^ 



luale comparatively small, rather pointed at the tip ; claspers usually quite simple 

 and seldom with any projection on even the inner margin ; ovipositor compressed, 

 pointed, and triangular, with the terminal lamellag quite free. 



Legs ringed or streaked with orange markings, and with a peculiar greyish brown 

 appearance caused by abundant depressed short pale pubescence, but in one 

 European species the legs have a blackish grey appearance with only the base of the 

 tibiae brownish. _ Pubescence moderate ; bristles rather few in number, but the 

 postero-ventral bristles on the tibiae stronger than usual ; hind tibise with only one 

 postero-dorsal bristle.* 



Wings normal. Squamse (alar) with a dense moderately long fringe which does 

 not extend below the angle. 



This genus is closely allied to Tolmerus, but the species may be dis- 

 tinguished by their pale yellowish grey appearance and by their orange 

 striped or ringed legs, Ncoitamus and Faritamus have the tibiae sharply 

 bright orange except at the tip. The female of Machivivs atricapUlus 

 may easily be confounded with E. ciiigulatus but should be distinguished 

 by its darker colour and entirely black haired frons, while the males of 

 the genus Machimus are easily distinguished by the produced or setose 

 hindmargin of the eighth ventral segment. 



Ejyitriijhis is composed of about fifteen Paliiearctic and two or three 

 American species; only about six European species are well distin- 

 guished, and our E. cingulatus is the only one known to occur north of 

 Central Europe. 



1. B. cingulatus Fabricius. Tibise with black and reddish orange 

 bands. Small species. 



The smallest species of the British Asilinw ; easily distin- 

 guished from all others except Machimus atricapillus by the 

 colour of the legs. 



$ . Dull yellow or yellowish grey. Face moderate in width, hardly one and a 

 half times as wide at the mouth as near the antennae, and the frons 

 considerably arched out above the antennae but contracting again towards the 

 vertex until it is as narrow there as the upper part of the face ; face and 

 frons all densely covered with dull golden (or on frons dull orange) tomentum 

 except on just the depressed middle part between the ocelli and the 

 antennae ; face-knob moderately large, occupying the lower two-thirds of 

 the face, and bearing the face-beard which is more or less black on the upper 

 part and sides but yellowish on the middle and lower parts, but a little before 

 the mouth the side black hairs diminish in number, and usually merge into 

 the yellow hairs, though only black hairs occur along the sides of the mouth ; 

 nearly the upper third and the sides of the face are quite bare ; after the hairs 

 on the sides of the mouth comes a gap before the whitish or yellowish white 

 chin- and jowl-beards, and the latter extends half-way up the back of the 

 head ; postocular festoon composed of about eight (5-8) stout but not long 

 and hardly curved-forwards black bristles near the upper eye-angle, which 

 when numerous are irregularly placed and more crowded than a postocular 

 row of about eight thinner yellow bristly hairs extending down to the middle 

 of the head ; the black bristles of the festoons usually do not meet behind the 

 vertex unless through bristles set further back on the back of the head, and 

 these intermediate bristles may be either orange or black ; back of the head 

 all covered with similar dull golden tomentum and with a few rather long 

 yellow hairs behind the upper part of the festoon ; frons with several rather 

 long radiating stiff black hairs on the ocellar prominence, and with some 



* If my specimen of E. ctrthriticus be correctly named I think it must be placed in some other genus, as 

 it does not agree with the other species of Epitriptus in either the coloring or bristling of the legs. 



