280 



and postscutellum flavous. Abdomen deplanate, black, with the 

 second to fourth segments more or less broadly, usually with their 

 apical half, dull red or badious and transversely impressed ; basal 

 segment scabriculous, basally impressed and at least in $ apically 

 white; the gastrocreli of the second distinct ; terebra subexserted. 

 Legs fulvous ; coxae flavous, with the hind ones always basally 

 black ; hind tibiae broadly white, black at the base and before apex, 

 the extreme apex (at least internally) always red. Wings slightly 

 clouded, with the stigma and radius infuscate, tegulae and radix 

 flavous. 



Length 5-7 millim. 



BENGAL: Patna and Pusa (Pusacoll.); BOMBAY (Oxf. Mus.). 

 EUEOPE. 



Type in the Breslau Museum. 



Tbis is a somewhat uncommon Palaearctic species, first described 

 by G-ravenhorst from Piedmont in 1829; and in Britain apparently 

 confined to its southern half. It has not yet been bred, but is 

 confined to marshy districts, where it is on the wing in June. It 

 has not hitherto been recorded from beyond the confines of 

 Central Europe, but I have seen in the Pusa collection a dozen 

 specimens of both sexes from Bengal, taken in February and 

 March on grass, lucerne, cauliflow er, and mustard, and in wheat- 

 fields, for the most part at Pusa. 



198. Bassus orientalis, Cam. 



Bassus orientalis, Cameron, Spol. Zeyl. 1905, p. 131 (J). 



d 1 . A black and profusely pale-marked species, with the abdo- 

 men and hind tibiae not at all red. Head black, with the white- 

 pilose face, clypeus, mandibles, palpi, and frontal orbits strami- 

 neous; clypeus basally and laterally 

 rounded, apically slightly but dis- 

 tinctly incised, with its lateral sutures 

 straight and oblique; vertex and 

 frous finely punctate, the latter longi- 

 tudinally sulcate centrally. Antennae 

 with the scape flavous, and the fla- 



[-^^^JSK^^r--^ gellum piceous, beneath. Thorax 



/ ^Sf\\ closely punctate; propleurae basally 



anove the radices, and elongate sub- 

 hamate callosities before the front 

 ones, others beneath both pairs of 

 radices, stramineous ; metanotum 

 more closely and rugosely punctate, 

 Fig. 71. w ith the petiolar area closely dis- 



Bassus orientalis. Cam. tinctly reticulate and basally carinate ; 



metapleurae glabrous below the lateral 



cannae, and rugulosely punctate above them. Scutellum and post- 

 scutellum stramineous. Abdomen black, with the first segment 



\ 



