492 Mr. G. J. Arrow 07i 



various collections, even the palest individuals have a 

 black seutellum, two spots on the thorax and bars on the 

 pygidium of the same colour, all of which are absent in the 

 males. 



This insect has been commonly regarded as identical 

 Avith the variable F. himaculata, but the recognition of the 

 pale form as the male will show the range of variation to 

 be much less than has been supposed and render the two 

 species immediately recognisable. The geographical dis- 

 tribution of P. himaciilaia seems to me to be much more 

 restricted than is at present supposed. The New Caledo- 

 nian insect, besides the black seutellum of the female and 

 the absence of markings in the male, is distinguished by 

 its larger size. Smaller forms occur in which the seutellum 

 is black, but these will probably be found to be also 

 specifically distinct from P. himaculata* 



A very prettily marked little insect belonging to this 

 division is P. Carolinx, Gestro, the position of which is 

 suggested by the two-spotted thorax. A specimen in the 

 British Museum is a male and has all the claws simple, a 

 condition which so far as is known occurs in this sex in 

 no other group of the genus. It appears to me liighly 

 probable that the other sex of this insect, which inhabits 

 New Guinea, is the female described by Dr. Ohaus from 

 that island as P. Weberi, which is a black form agreeing 

 in size and sculpture as well as in the formation of the 

 claws. 



P. viarginata, Boisd., which seems to occupy an inter- 

 mediate position between this section and the next, agrees 

 with no other known species in claw-structure. All the 

 tarsi have divided claws in the male, and only the second 

 and third pairs in the female, as also occurs in the next 

 group, which, however, is strongly differentiated from all 

 the rest of the genus by the form of the middle tarsi of 

 the male. Of sixteen individuals of P. hiarginata which 

 I have examined in the British and Oxford Museums only 

 one, an entirely black insect, is a female. Of the males 

 three are testaceous, the head and tarsi only being of a 

 rather darker tint, and the rest have the head, a mark of 



* Note. Dr. Oliaus has mentioned the Philippine Is., as well as 

 the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, as included iu the habitat 

 of this species, but the true bimncnlnta dues not appear to nie to 

 occur in any of these isL-inds. The Pliilippine form is F. nvjricvps, 

 Westw., a much smaller insect witli hardly visible puncturation. 



