PROMETIIUS. 2S7 



Genus PROMETHUS, TJwns. 



Promethes, Fiirster, Verli. pr. Rheinl. 1868, p. 162 (part.). 



Promethus, Thomson, Opusc. Ent. xiv, 1890, p. 1475. 



Sussaba, Cameron, Journ. Bombay Xat. Hist. Soc. 1909, p. 728. 



GENOTYPE, Bassus sulcator, Grav. 



This genus contains the smallest and most fragile species of 

 the genus Bassus (sensu Holmg.). It is at oace recognised by 

 the entirely glabrous and very strongly nitidulous face in both 

 sexes and may be known from all other BA.SSIDES by having the 

 metathoracic spiracles small and immaculate, the scutellar fovea 

 simple and not transcarinate, by its lack of an areolet and its 

 never entirely black abdomen. 



Range. Palaearctic and Oriental Regions. 



Some eleven Palaearctic and three or four American species 

 have been described, but what it lacks in specific numbers is com- 

 pensated in thafc of individuals, for in Europe it is extremely 

 abundant throughout the summer on low herbage, more especially 

 in moist situations. It has very rarely been bred, and then, like 

 its immediate allies, the host has almost invariably proved to be 

 the larvae of aphidivorous SYRPHID.&. 



But a single species, erroneously placed by Cameron in a new 

 genus, has hitherto been recorded from India, though further 

 investigation will in all probability prove it to be of very general 

 distribution in the more temperate regions. 



Table of Species. 



1 (2) Basal segment twice as long as broad ; 2nd 



basally striate sulcator, Grav. 



2 (1) Basal segment half as long again as broad ; 



2nd mainly striate pulchelltts, Holmg. 



204. Promethus sulcator, Grav. 



Bassus sulcator, Gravenhorst, Ichn. Eur. iii, 1829, p. 320, excl. 



var. 1 ( cf $ ) ; of- Holmgren, Sv. Ak. Handl. 1854, p. 84. 

 Bassus festivus, Zetterstedt (nee Fab.), Ins. Lapp, i, p. 378 ( $ ). 

 Bassus areolatus, Holmgren, Sv. Ak. Handl. 1854, p. 85 ; op. cit. 



1855, p. 365 (d $ ) ; cf. Brischke, Schr. Nat. Ges. Danz. 1878, 



p. 113($). 

 Promethus sulcator, Thomson, Opusc. Ent. xiv. 1890, p. 1479 ; 



Morley, Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1905, p. 429 (J $). 



A slender black species. Head as broad as thorax and tri- 

 angular ; cheeks elongate, epistoma of $ not pale ; irons smooth 

 and centrally subsulcate ; clypeus unequally foveolate and apically 

 slightly emarginate ; cf with face, cheeks and frontal orbits 

 shortly stramineous ; $ with mouth and clypeus pale. Antennae 

 elongate, slender, filiform, reaching beyond the thorax nearly to 



