Gen us Megarhinus 
215 
Sub-Family MEGARHININA. 
Genus 2. —MEGARHINUS. Robineau Desvoidy. 
(Essai sur les Culicides, Mem. Soc. d’Hist. Nat. de Paris, iii. 1827, p. 412; 
Dipt. Exotica, i. pi. 1, fig. 1 (1838), Macquart; Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. 
Wales, iii. p. 1720 (1889), Skuse ; Regne Anim, v. 139; Cur et Latreille, 
p. 439 (1829); List of Diptera, Brit. Mus. i. 1 (1848), Walker; Dipt. 
Argentina, p. 31 (1891), Arribalzaga.) 
Head clothed with flat scales only; thorax clothed with 
small spindle-shaped scales (Fig. 63, 9, c), rather broader ones at 
the sides and flat ones on the scutellum ; abdomen clothed with 
flat scales densely packed (b); of a general brilliant and metallic 
colour. Proboscis long, curved downwards, often a little longer 
in the $ than in the 9 ’> antennae plumose in the £ , in the 9 
pilose; in the £ tile second joint is always very elongated and 
enlarged and densely scaled ; palpi of the £ often a little longer 
than the proboscis ; in the 9 the same length or shorter ; the 9 
palpi are 4 or 5-jointed ; the apical joints seem to readily break off, 
so that the palpi seem short, and thus it is difficult to say if the 
specimen is a Megarhinus unless very carefully examined ; in the 
the first joint is short, second longer, third and fourth long, 
of variable proportions ; the last few (three as a rule) segments 
of the £ abdomen bordered laterally by dense hairs, often of 
brilliant colour ) in the wings the fork-cells are very short, 
especially the first sub-marginal cell, the cross-veins being a long 
way distant from the bases of the cells, so that the stalks of the 
cells are very long ; the supernumerary transverse is nearer the 
apex of the wing than the mid transverse, often six times its 
own length nearer the apex of the wing; mid and posterior 
cross-veins in one line or separate, or at an angle ; wings not 
densely scaly, the scales along the costal borders, &e., often 
metallic (Fig. 67, a). Ungues of the 9 equal and simple, of 
the £ unequal on the fore and mid and equal on the hind legs ■ 
the larger are always toothed. 
This genus is the most beautiful of all the Culicidae, the 
greater number of its species are of brilliant coloration and 
have a curious caudal tuft of fine hair-like scales at the end ot 
