240 
A Monograph of Culicidae. 
There are discrepancies certainly in regard to the descriptions, 
but these are easily explained by the varied appearance in 
different lights and by the leg banding only being visible in 
certain positions of the legs. The chestnut-brown thorax with 
the azure-blue median line on the mesothorax in the 9 5 the deep 
purple mid scutellar lobe, the venation and second antennal 
joint, however, readily separate it from allied species. 
Specimens so named in the British Museum were M. Portori- 
censis. I have not found a specimen in the collections. 
The species is evidently variable; in those I have examined 
in Bigot’s collection the following slight differences may be 
noticed in the 9 : the palpi have metallic green, mauve and 
violet scales, black in some lights, with mauve and azure-blue 
apical bands to the joints, and are longer than the antennae by 
their last joint; the scutellum has azure-blue scales only; the 
greater part of the first and the basal part of the second fore 
tarsi silvery-white, the last two joints black ; in the mid legs 
the third tarsal joint is also nearly all silvery-white; in the hind 
legs the white band begins on the third tarsal joint, which is all 
white. 
The various discrepancies in regard to the white on the tarsi 
are due to the position in which the legs are set, the white not 
being in the form of true bands—may be hidden beneath or at 
the side of the legs, and so cannot be detected when the specimens 
are carded. 
In Colonel Giles’s book I find the following statement of 
interest : “ In a £ specimen in the collection of H. Y. Wiethem, 
of Hamburg, the tarsi, especially of the hind legs, are much pro¬ 
longed, and of a clear steel-blue colour, the fourth joint being- 
white ; the tarsi of the not elongated middle legs have the third 
and fourth joints white; the front legs are broken.” This is 
evidently M. ferox. 
Macquart (“ D. E.,” Supp. II., p. 7) says : “ R. Desvoidy 
and Wiedemann describe the second joint of the hind tarsi as 
silvery. We have observed a complete specimen in which the 
hind tarsi have the fourth and fifth joints silvery on the inner 
side, with a little black at the tip of the fifth. In the 9 we 
have observed the fore tarsi have the second and third joints 
silvery on the anterior side ; the middle ones have these two 
joints entirely so; the hind ones have also the fourth and fifth 
joints silvery.” 
