9. EPITRIPTUS 691 



and one near the base and sometimes one at about tliree-quarters, three 

 antero-ventral after the middle and about three shorter hairs before the 

 middle. Pulvilli elongate oblong, brownish yellow ; claws dull black. 



Wings hyaline with a somewhat greyish tint and with very extensive 

 brownish grey "gloom" all about the tip and hindmargin, even to occupying 

 almost all the axillary cell down to the anal angle, but leaving the margins of 

 the branches of the postical fork and all the veins enclosing the fourth 

 posterior cell hyaline, and with a dark fold all along the middle of the upper 

 basal cell. Squamae (alar) brownish yellow, with yellow or orange margins 

 which bear a dense rather long yellowish white fringe not extending down- 

 wards beyond the angle. Halteres dull yellowish brown. 



9 . Very much like the male except for the ovipositor. Palpi almost always 

 with some pale hairs ; antennae with the third joint stouter. Thorax with 

 the middle stripe less split and extending at about half its width to the hind- 

 margin. Abdomen with the pubescence and bristles or bristly hairs shorter 

 and less obvious ; ovipositor formed for more than half its length out of the 

 shining black eighth abdominal segment so that it forms a long fiat-sided 

 triangle which ends in the small elongate free lamellae and bears very few 

 short hairs ; pubescence on the last abdominal segments including many more 

 black hairs. 



Length about 1 1 mm. 



This species is rather variable in regard to the distinctness and extent 

 of the black or blackish markings on the femora and tibiae, and Loew 

 states that the East European specimens are larger and bear longer denser 

 pubescence on the legs which gives them a stouter appearance. The 

 nearest British species in coloring is Machimus atricapillus from w^hich it 

 is distinguished by its smaller size, sandier colour, and to a large extent 

 pale haired frons. Neoitamus may be distinguished by the sharply defined 

 shining yellow coloring on the legs. 



E. cingulatus is fairly common and widely distributed in Britain, as I 

 have records from Cornwall (Penzance, The Lizard, and Boscastle), Devon- 

 shire (Lynton, Torcross, Dartmoor), Dorset (Purbeck), Somerset (Taunton), 

 Gloucestershire, Hampshire (New Forest, Freshwater), Sussex, Surrey, 

 Middlesex, Suffolk (Southwold, Orford), Norfolk (Hunstanton), Worcester- 

 shire (Malvern Hills), Merioneth (Aberdovey), Nairn, Elgin (Forres, 

 Culbin Sandhills), Aberdeen. My dates extend from July 11 to 

 September 9. It is recorded from all Europe except the extreme North 

 and perhaps the extreme South, though it extends a long way through 

 Italy and to Constantinople. 



Synonymy. — I have no doubt but that this was the Asiliis mactdosus of Moses 

 Harris (1782) as he said the legs "are spotted, or clouded like tortoise-shell," and I 

 do not think that character would apply to any other British species ; as however 

 his description and figure are otherwise hopelessly unrecognisable I cannot adopt 

 his name ; Stephens attempted to recognise Antipalus varipes in Harris' description 

 but I do not think the size (four lines) would allow that, and moreover I have 

 never seen a British specimen of A. varij^es. An exceedingly small male of 

 Neoitamus cyanurus was placed under E. cingulatus in C. W. Dale's collection at 

 Oxford. Two males from Lozoncz in Hungary which represented this species in 

 Kowarz's collection have the femora all blackish except about the tip, and the frons 

 wholly black haired, 



