84 R. W. CROSSKEY 



This species is distinguished at a glance from all other Germariochaetini by the 

 orange-coloured femora. Its facies is rather that of L. javanum, but it has more 

 structural characters in common with obliteratum, as the descriptions and key indi- 

 cate. It is possible that the pale femora will prove to be a secondary sexual character, 

 the male perhaps having uniformly dark legs, but it is not likely that obliteratum 

 is the male of rufofemoratum even though both are from India. 



Tribe ELOCERIINI 

 (Helocerini) 



The type-genus of this tribe is Eloceria Robineau-Desvoidy, but the tribe has 

 been known as Helocerini because of Mik's (1883 : 184) emendation of this name 

 to Helocera. Although Mik made the change for supposedly grammatical reasons 

 (' . . . Robineau's Gattungsname Eloceria grammatikalisch unrichtig gebildet ist, 

 schlagen wir den richtigen Namen Helocera . . .') it is an unjustified emendation 

 under the ICZN Code and Eloceria is the valid name. 



Mesnil (1973& : 1220-1221) has defined the tribe (as Helocerina) and states that 

 it is found only in the Palaearctic Region and North America, but he has evidently 

 overlooked his description (Mesnil, 1953c) of Helocera angustifrons Mesnil from 

 Burma. Up to now this has been the only member of the tribe known to occur 

 in the Oriental Region, but the BMNH collection contains a specimen from Matiana 

 (Himachal Pradesh), India, identified by Mesnil as belonging to a new species of 

 Trichactia Stein. Hence at least two genera and species occur in the northern 

 parts of the Oriental Region. 



These two species require brief comment. (1) Eloceria angustifrons is known 

 only from the male holotype, which is not in good condition and lacks both mid 

 legs; the characters show clearly, however, that this is a valid species of Eloceria, 

 although it is atypical because the frons is narrower than usual and lacks the out- 

 wardly directed pair of prevertical setae that are normally present in male as well 

 as female eloceriines; in other respects it is very clearly a close ally of E. delecta 

 (Meigen), the type-species of Eloceria, as Mesnil showed in the original description, 

 though it lacks the pra seta. (2) Trichactia sp. The specimen so named by Mesnil 

 in the BMNH does not fully fit the genus as Mesnil (19736 : 1221) has characterized 

 it, for it combines some of the features of Trichactia Stein and others of Synactia 

 Villeneuve, but it appears best to place it as representing a new species of Trichactia 

 for present purposes. The tripartite arista, thickened on the whole length, resembles 

 that of typical Trichactia species, as do the well developed palpi, but the parafacials 

 are totally bare and the hind tibia has only two dorsal preapical setae, and in these 

 respects the specimen fits Synactia; the inner vertical setae, although slightly 

 displaced, appear to be subparallel (as in Synactia), and this fact together with the 

 presence of palpi indicates that the specimen does not appertain to a species of 

 Eloceria. 



Very little is known of the hosts of Eloceriini, and nothing for the Oriental species. 



