270 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV. 



This species does not fit well into any of the sections of Mutilla 

 as defined by recent writers, e.g., M. Ernest Andre. It appears to 

 be intermediate between Cystomutilla and Dasylahris ; it has the 

 stigma fairly well developed and the abdomen subpetiolated as 

 in the former, but there are no furrows on the meso-notum ; from 

 Dasylahris it may be known by the abdomen not being clearly petio- 

 lated. It cannot very well be confounded with any of the known 

 Indian species, being easily known by there being only two transverse 

 cubital nervures, by the curved mandibles with only one apical tooth, 

 by the transverse basal nervure not being interstitial, and by the 

 almost sessile abdomen. 



Mutilla diomeda, sp. nov. 



Nigra, dense albo pilosa ; thorace rufo ; alls fusoo-violaceis, basi 

 fere hyalinis, nervis nigris, $ 



Length. — 10 mm. 



Habitat. — Simla. 



Antennse black, stout, covered thickly with microscopic pile ; the 

 scape with longish white hair. Head distinctly narrower than the 

 thorax ; the front and vertex rugosely punctured : the ocellar region 

 smooth, raised and bordered laterally by a smooth space ; the front 

 bears in the centre a wide, but not very deep, furrow ; the front thickly 

 covered with white pubescence and more sparsely with longish white 

 hair ; the vertex more sparsely with long white and black hairs. 

 Antennal tubercles rufous. Clypeus roundly, but not deeply, 

 incised in the middle ; aciculated. Mandibles black, their base 

 thickly covered with long white hair. Palpi black, thickly covered 

 with white hair. Thorax rufous, the sternum black ; pro-notum 

 smooth, transverse at the base ; meso-notum coarsely and deeply punc- 

 tured, the punctures of almost equal size throughout • the two 

 furrows are deep. Scutellum not quite so strongly punctured as 

 the meso-notum, but quite as closely ; its base smooth and with an 

 oblique slope. The median segment has a gradually rounded slope, 

 and is closely reticulated ; at the base are two large are^e with a 

 smaller, shorter area on the sides ; these areas are irregular in shape. 

 Wings fuscous, with a violaceous tinge ; at the base they are paler, more 

 hyaline ; the basal abscissa of the radius is straight, oblique and thinner 

 than the rest of it ; the apical is roundly curved ; the extreme 

 apex straighter than the lower portion ; the second transverse cubital 



