20 Indian Museum Holes. [ YoL III- 



THE BANDED MOSQUITO OF BENGAL. 



BY F. A. A. SKUSE, ENTOMOLOGIST TO THE AUSTRALIAN 

 MUSEUM, SYDNEY. 



Culex alhopicf'iis, S/cuse, 8p. nov. 



Female, — Length of antennae 1'50 ram.; expanse of wings 2'50 X 

 0'50 mm,; length of body 3-3'50 mm. 



Black with silvery-white markings. Antennae somewhat shorter 

 than the proboscis, joints of the scapus with silvery scales. Head with 

 silvery-white scales on the front and sides. Proboscis five times the 

 length of the palpi, the latter tipped with silvery scales. Thorax 

 traversed by a line of silvery scales for rather more than its anterior 

 half; pleurae spotted with silvery white; seutellum with minute 

 silvery hairs. Abdomen twice the length of the thorax, the segments 

 bordered with a narrow band of silvery scales, and with lateral silvery 

 spots. Legs : femora with a silvery line beneath, and slightly tipped 

 with silvery scales; tarsi, the first two joints in the fore and inter- 

 mediate legs with a narrow silvery-white ring at the base ; broad 

 rings at the base of all the joints of the tarsi in the hind legs, the last 

 joint entirely white. In the hiad-legs the tibia about one-third longer 

 than the metatarsus. Wings the length of the abdomen, pellucid, irides- 

 cent, the veins clothed with linear black scales. Auxiliary vein joining 

 the costa at a point a little before the posterior branch of the fifth 

 longitudinal vein ; middle cross-vein indistinct, shorter than, the 

 posterior cross-vein, situated beyond it scarcely a distance equal to twice 

 the length of the latter; first sub-marginal cell longer and narrower 

 than the second posterior cell, their bases opposite or almost opposite ; 

 anterior branch of the fifth longitudinal vein originating about midway 

 between the origin of the second longitudinal vein and the tip of the 

 sixth longitudinal. 



Z?a^.— Bengal. ' - 



Ti/pe in Australian Museum, 



Three specimens received from Mr. E. C. Cotes, who informs me 

 that this insect is a great nuisance in Calcutta. The species is 'allied 

 to C. 9iosfoscriptUu, Sk., from New South Wales, and C. dancro/fi, Sk., 

 from Queensland, but the silvery ornamentation of the thorax in these 

 latter is of an elaborate pattern (Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W., Vol. Ill 

 (Ser. 3), 1838, pp. 1738, 17iO). 



