ACULEATE HYMENOPTERA FROM MESOPOTAMIA. 821 



28. Cryptocheilus{-Salius,F)bicolor,F.~2 $ 2 , Amara (M), 19th June, 



7th September. 

 [2 $ 2, Amara, 27th and 29th 

 August 1918.— Captain Evans.] 



29. Sceliphron (- Pelopoeus, L&tT.) caucasicum, Andiv — 1 $, Kurna (M), 



20th May. [1 2 Amara (M), 27th August 1918— 

 Captain Evans]. 

 30 Sceliphron tuhijex, Latr. — 



[1 specimen taken near Basrah (M) in October 

 1918 by Lieut. Harwood.] 

 I forgot to take note of the sex before returning this insect to its captor. 

 But I observed that the scapes of its antennae were partly yellow. In this species 

 they seem to be normally immaculate, but in destillatorium,l\\. (though other- 

 wise a less highly coloured insect), I have always found them entirely yellow! 

 31. Ampidex assimilis,Koh\. — 1 <^, Amara (M), 19th June. [1 $, Lieut. 



Harwood. From Mesopotamia, but I 



have no note of the precise locality, nor of 



the date of capture]. 



Hitherto only $ 2 of this species seem to have occurred. Kohl described 



it from specimens in the Vienna Museum, giving " Guinea " as their locality, 



but mentions that one of them came " angeblich von Bagdad." It is interesting 



to have confirmation of the latter record, which without such confirmation 



might reasonably be thought open to doubt. 



Until I saw Lieut. Harwood's 2 and identified it with the help of Kohl's 

 monograph of the genus as assimilis, I thought that I had already determined 

 the $ for certain as another of that author's new spp. namely, gratiosa. The 

 latter, like assimilis, was described from C4uinea, and also in one sex only — in 

 this case the $ ! The characters of Captain Buxton's insect almost without 

 exception are absolutely identical with those described by Kohl for gratiosa 

 ^ : in fact the onlj^ points I can discover which might conceivably distinguish 

 the two forms are as follows. 



(a) The eyes of assimilis may perhaps be slightly neajer together on the 

 vertex, the distance between them being only two-thirds of the length of the 

 3rd antenual joint, Avhei-eas in gratiosa it is simply called " hardly as long." 



Fig. 1. 8 Last Joints of Hind Tarsi in A. Assimilis S • 



(b) The fourth joint of the hind tarsi (Figure 1) is certainly not above half 

 as long as either the fifth joint or the third (it is exactly as Kohl describes it in 

 assimilis 2 !) But of gratiosa $ he says merely, that the fourth joint is " visibly" 

 shorter than the third, at the same time calling it " about half as long as tie 

 fifth." From this it seems a probable inference that in gratiosa the 3rd and 4th 

 tarsal joints differ less than in assimilis. 



(c) Except a very slight ill defined cloud, filling the radial cell, but hardly 

 extending beyond it, and another (still smaller) in the angle contained between 

 the median vein and the brachial nerve {n. iransversiis ordinarius), I can find 

 nothing in the wings of assimilis corresponding to the two feeble dark 'Querbind- 

 en' mentioned in the diagnosis of gratiosa. 



(d) The mandibles of assimilis— at least in the specimen before me— are 

 strongly rufescent. If this character occurs also in gratiosa, the author has not- 

 mentioned it. 



