104 pompiliDjE. 



shape of mammse : legs massive, especially the coxse and femora, 

 whicli in the cJ are disproportionately thick, with the femora 

 sometimes flattened beneath into thin laminae, and serrated, the 

 serrations blunt ; tibiae and tarsi absolutely without spines and 

 bearing only a little thin covering of long soft hairs. Wings very 

 broad ; the fore wing with the radial cell rounded at apex ; three 

 cubital cells, the 2nd, slightly smaller than the 1st or the 3rd, 

 receives the 1st recurrent nervure towards the apex, the 3rd 

 cubital cell receives the 2nd recurrent nervure about the middle ; 

 basal nervure interstitial, or taking its rise beyond the apex of the 

 1st submedial cell ; the cubital nervure in the hind wing interstitial 

 with the transverse anal nervure. 



JFig. 22. — Side view of thorax 

 showing tubercle in 

 front of intermediate 

 coxae. 



Fig. 21. — Macromeris violacea, c?. \. 



The habits of the species belonging to this genus are almost 

 unknown. Once I observed a female carrying some large hairy 

 spiders (Heteropoda venatoria) to a chink in a deserted wooden 

 house, in the forests in Tenasserim, and there is no doubt she was 

 storing these as food for her future progeny. 



Only three species are known, of which, so far as I know, only 

 one, M. violacea.. LepeL, is found within our limits. Smith, however 

 {loc. cit.), gives M. splendida as coming from India too, but there 

 is no specimen of it from India in the British Museum collec- 

 tion, nor have I seen it in any other collection from India, Burma, 

 Tenasserim, or Ceylon. It, as well as the third species recently 

 described by me (Jour. Linn. Soc. 1896, p. 438), may occtir ; I give, 

 therefore, a key to easily discriminate the three species. 



Key to the Species. 



A. Wings dark fuscous. 



ft. Wings coppery, golden or feiTuginous at 

 base, dark fuscous brown, with a rich 

 purple and blue effulgence on the apical 

 half M. splendida. 



