Y22 ASILID^ 



the basal two-tliirds ; front tibi» with short furry reddish orange pubescence 

 in front on the apical half ; anterior femora with a few thin pale hairs inter- 

 mixed dorsally near the base ; hind femora with almost all the bristles and 

 hairs pale even about or under the tip ; hind tibiae almost normal in shape, 

 being only very slightly twisted and moderately dilated, and with mostly pale 

 bristles and hairs except the strong black bristles on the apical third ; hind 

 tarsi almost normal in shape, the basal joint being shining black, not com- 

 pressed, hardly dilated, and not quite so long as the other four joints together, 

 while the bristles and hairs on the basal joint are all black except the 

 minute pubescence and about two anterior bristles near the middle, though a 

 few minute dorsal bristles on the second joint are yellow. All the soft 

 pubescence of the legs has a yellowish tinge. 



Wings more brownish than in the male, and the wing-tip not at all 

 darkened. 



The more common British form differs as follows : — 



Head with all its pubescence (face-beard, frons, ocellar prominence, and 

 basal joints of antennae) light greyish yellow, or the middle hairs of the face- 

 beard rich orange at the base, or the face-beard entirely reddish orange. 

 Thorax with all its pubescence light brownish or greyish yellow, or some- 

 times with the base of the hairs on the back part orange. Legs with the 

 front tibiae sometimes hardly reddish at the base, and with all the bristles 

 and hairs yellow or orange except the spurs on the anterior tibiae and most 

 of the hairs and bristles on the anterior tarsi. Wings more strongly tinged 

 with brown from the base to the discal cross-vein but not on the costal and 

 subcostal cells. 



Length about 9 mm. 



This species has no close ally in Europe as the only other one in the 

 genus is /. vitripcnnis Meig., which has the hind tarsi of the male simple, 

 the face-beard much weaker, and the pubescence on the anterior half of 

 the thorax very short. Aphamartania syriaca Schin. must belong to some 

 other genus as it has strong thoracic bristles. 



/. brcvirostris cannot be considered a common British species, though I 

 have records from Devonshire (Ivy bridge and Holne), Sussex (near Lewes), 

 Kent (Darenth and Dover), Cambridgeshire (near Newmarket), Bucks 

 (Wormsley), Gloucestershire (Selsley and Painswick), Herefordshire (t. Dr 

 J. H. Wood), Westmoreland (Eydal Water), Merioneth (Dolgelly and 

 Barmouth), and various Scotch localities (Arran, Aberfoyle, Rannoch, 

 Loch Maree, etc.), from May 26 to July 15. These localities seem to 

 confirm Schiner's statement that it is fairly common in mountain districts 

 but rare in the lowlands. Curtis recorded it "in plenty on Newmarket 

 " Heath, in a place commonly called the Devil's Dyke, and the middle of 

 " August I found several pair settling upon the plants that grow in 

 profusion in the North-Foreland meadow, Dover." A female in the Hope 

 Museum at Oxford is labelled " Devils Ditch 2/7/33 very sluggish in a 

 " dull afternoon. Males very scarce in comparison to females and found 

 " in the grass ; " this is probably one of Curtis's original specimens. It is 

 recorded from North and Middle Europe. 



Synonyniij. — The generic synonymy is dealt with under the genus, and the only 

 point worth mentioning here is that the female appears to have been an unsur- 

 mountable stumbling block to Bigot, inasmuch as he described two females of the 

 pale haired race as Dasijpogon caudatus (1881) and four others as Cyrtopogonl 

 rujitihiale I while he had another as his sole exponent of the female of Lasiopogon 

 Macquarti, and still another under his Dioctria atricapilla. It is very prob- 

 able that the record of /. hottentottus as British (Pascoe, Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 

 1880, iii.) was made in mistake for the pale haired form of this species. 



