720 ASILID^ 



basal joints together ; style long and two-jointed, bent at an angle to the 

 third joint, basal joint very short but the second joint brown, minutely 

 downy, narrow and quite half as long as the third antennal joint, and with a 

 very short apical arista. 



Thorax so highly arched that both the head and scutellum are much 

 below it in profile, shining black on all the upper side, distinctly punctate but 

 with most of the humeral knobs and a pair of approximated narrow stripes 

 (just outside the middle stripe) on the anterior two-thirds of the disc im- 

 punctate and consequently more shining, while a small patch of grey tomentum 

 occurs just above each wing-base; pubescence on the disc long and dense, 

 rather sloping and usually black on the front two-thirds (where it is strong 

 but not bristly), and longer still, more sloping, more silky, and whitish on the 

 hind third, but the colour varies a little as some silky white pubescence some- 

 times occurs on the humeri and along the sides of the front part while stray 

 whitish hairs may occur among the dense black pubescence, or on the other 

 hand the whitish (or yellowish) pubescence may be reduced to less than the 

 hind third and may have stray black hairs intermixed ; pleurae mainly covered 

 with pale grey tomentum, but the lower front part of the mesopleurse rather 

 bare and shining and the upper part bearing a patch of silky whitish 

 pubescence, and the metapleurae with a rather large tuft of long crinkled 

 silky white or greyish white hairs which hardly form a fan. Scutellum over- 

 hung by the hindmargin of the thorax, shining black and almost bare on the 

 disc but with long upturned silky whitish submarginal pubescence. There 

 is no trace of any prsesutural or supra-alar bristles, nor in fact anything which 

 can be called a bristle, on any part of the thorax or scutellum. 



Abdomen longitudinally arched, cylindrical (the sidemargins being curved 

 over towards the belly), rather pointed and shining black though obviously 

 punctate ; basal segment very short and almost concealed ; second segment 

 with its front corners sharply angled and with a girdle at its hindmargins ; 

 eighth segment short but distinct, nearly half the length of the seventh. 

 Pubescence rendered conspicuous by the shimmer of the 

 rather short closely adpressed whitish hairs which appear 

 to be brushed inwards from the sides and downwards down 

 the middle, but the pubescence is longer and more erect 

 about the sides of the second and part of the third segments 

 and is short erect and rigidly outstanding along the sides 

 of the fifth, sixth, and seventh segments, but hindmarginal 

 bristles or even strong hairs are entirely absent. Genitalia 

 with a pair of small side lamellae which arch over and conceal 

 the end, while the lower lamellae are shining black, short, 

 and rounded at the end, and the last ventral segment bears 

 a remarkable tuft of erect black bristles. 



Legs black, but the front femora reddish at the under- 

 side of the tip, the front tibiae often obscurely reddish at 

 the base, the middle tibiae dull orange or reddish on the 

 basal half and the hind tibiae on nearly the basal two-thirds, 

 and the hind tarsi dull dirty yellow in immature specimens 

 but blackish in mature specimens, while a silvery sheen 

 occurs on the apical half of the hind tibiae and on the 

 basal joint of the hind tarsi; femora strong, the hind pair 

 strongest ; anterior tibiae and tarsi normal ; hind tibiae very 

 Fio. 397— Asopoffore "luch dilated soon after the base and continuing so to the 

 hrevifostr'is $. x 10. tip though most dilated about the middle ; hind tarsi with 

 (Left hind leg.) ^}^g basal joint remarkably long and thin being compressed 

 after a rather cylindrical base to a knife-like upper 

 edge and about three times as long as the other four joints together (fig. 

 397), while a silvery sheen caused by minute depressed white pubescence 

 occurs on the posterior apical half of the hind tibiae and on the anterior 

 side of the basal joint of the hind tarsi. Coxae grey-dusted and bearing 

 long silky whitish pubescence, and on the anterior pairs a few curved 

 black bristly hairs about the tip ; femora with dense dorsal and anterior 

 black bristly hairs, but beneath and behind with longer conspicuous 

 thin silky whitish hairs, of which the longest occur on the basal half 



