540 Mr. Edward Saunders on 



strongly and closely punctured; face carinated between the antennse 

 with an inverted V-shaped mark above the carina, a spot in the 

 sinus of each eye, a small one behind the eye, and a broad lunate 

 spot at the base of the clypeus yellow ; apex of the clypeus slightly 

 raised and produced in the centre which is angularly emarginate, 

 its sides slightly sinuate; antennae with its intermediate joints 

 from the middle of the 3rd to that of the 7th rufescent, 3rd 

 and 4th joints subequal, 5th rather shorter, only slightly longer 

 than wide, following joints subqnadrate. Thorax rather more 

 finely punctured than the head, anterior margin of pronotum straight, 

 its angles well marked and rectangular, with a large yellow 

 spot on each side covering the angle, but not quite meeting in 

 the centre of the margin, mesopleurse with a spot under the 

 insertion of the wings, 2 small spots on the scutellum, 2 

 transverse spots on the post-scutellum, and 2 large spots on the 

 propodeum, yellow. Wings slightly smoky, external nerve of third 

 submarginal cell angulated below its middle, legs with the apices of 

 the femora, the tibiae and tarsi (except the posterior pair of the latter 

 which are infuscate) yellow ; abdomen with the basal segment, black, 

 rather more shining and coarsely punctured than the rest, 2nd to 

 6th regularly punctured, each a little less strongly and more finely 

 punctured than the preceding one, and each bearing a broad trans- 

 verse yellow band ; that of the 2nd segment angularly emarginate 

 at the base, those of the 3rd and 4th entirely covering the base, 

 and leaving only about a 3rd of the segment black at the apex, that 

 of the 8th interrupted in the middle and not touching either the 

 base or apex, the sixth almost entirely yellow, beneath black, finely 

 punctured with a large lateral spot on the 3rd and 4th segments. 

 Long. 9 m.m. 



$ 1. on the high-road from Algiers to El Biar, 17. ii. 93. 

 A. E. E. 



Pompilus, Fab. 



This is perhaps the most difficult of all the fossorial 

 genera to deal with. In the first place the number of 

 species described is somewhat appalling, being over 400 

 for the Palsearctic region only. Of these, about 150 are 

 black with the base of the abdomen red, and possess in 

 most cases a general similarity, in colour and form, so that 

 small structural characters have to be relied upon to 

 separate them into species. Another, and one of the chief 

 difficulties, is that good structural characters can be easily 

 detected in the <J , whereas those in the $ are often 



