﻿ERNEST E. AUSTEN— NEW AFRICAN TABANIDAE— PART III. 405 



TABANINAE. 



Genus Haematopota, Mg. 



Haematopota grahami, sp. n. (fig. l). 



Q. — Length (13 specimens) 8*6 to 12*5 mm.; width of head 3 to 4 mm.; 

 width of front at vertex just under 1 mm, to 1*2 mm. ; length of wing 8*5 

 to 10*6 mm. 



Dark brown species, allied to and resembling H. bullatifrons, Austen* but dis- 

 tinguishable at once, inter alia, by the hind tibiae being less expanded and, instead of 

 exhibiting a pair of narrow, buff-coloured bands, having a single, much deeper, 

 creamy-white band close to the base. — Front yellowish-grey pollinose, decidedly 

 narrower than that of H. bullatifrons ; frontal callus dark brown, extending 

 practically from eye to eye ; dorsum of thorax dark sepia-coloured, with grey 

 markings as shown in fig. 1, dorsum of scutellum, except hind border, yellowish 

 smoke-grey ; dorsum of abdomen dark brown, with narrow cjrey hind borders to the 

 segments, hind border of second segment usually somewhat deeper than remainder, 



Fig. 1. — Haematopota graham), Austen, £. X 4. 



and in middle line expanded into a narrow, forwardly directed triangle, dorsal scutes 

 of fifth and tivo following segments sometimes each bearing on its anterior half a 

 pair of small, elongate, grey spots, resting on front margin of segment ; wings dark 



* For this Northern Nigerian species Baron J. M. R. Surcouf, of the Museum National 

 D'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, recently proposed to found a new genus, which he was good enough 

 to designate Austenia (Bull. Mus. Nat. D'Hist. Nat., 1909 (not published until 1910), p. 454). 

 In proposing a generic separation in the case of Haemotopota bullatifrons, M. Surcouf relied 

 upon the shape and other characters of the frontal callus, on the presence of fringes of long 

 hair on the femora, and on the shape of the hind tibiae in this species ; in the same paper the 

 author in question, on the basis of characters presented by the antennae, proposed a new genus 

 named Potisa for certain Oriental species, the genotype in this case being Haemotopota 

 pachycera, Big., which occurs in Cambodia and Siam. In the opinion of the present writer, 

 however, no valid division of the genus Haematopota, at any rate into categories higher than 

 groups or subgenera, is possible, since, although within the limits of the genus great differences 

 exist in the shape of the frontal callus, antennae, front and hind tibiae, etc., it would be difficult 

 to find two species showing identical differences from the genotype, yet all are united by the 

 well-known, highly characteristic, and distinctive wing-markings, as well as by a general fades. 



