strong spines at the tip placed at right angles; the basal joint of the tarsi in these legs is singularly dilated at its internal base into a strong horny and toothed plate; the posterior tibiæ are clothed with fulvous hairs; the wings are pale brown, the basal lobe large and nearly black, the apical half of the wing brown with the nerves margined, especially at the hinder margin of the wing, with whitish; the third and fourth segments of the abdomen are furnished with a pair of tufts of black hairs; there is also a pair of more minute tufts on the fifth segment; halteres black.
Inhabits New South Wales. In the collection of the Rev. F. W. Hope.
"I have only seen," says Mr. Westwood, who furnished the drawing of this insect, "males of this curious species. I possess another still larger species of Asilus from New Holland, agreeing with the preceding in the broad and flattened abdomen with lateral tufts, and which is evidently the Asilus Coriareus of Weidemann, (Auss. Zweifl. Ins. 2, p. 644,) although the description of that author being derived from a solitary and mutilated specimen is necessarily incomplete. Of this species I have only seen females; and I have but little doubt that the insect here figured will ultimately prove to be the males of Weidemann's insect, notwithstanding the great diversity in their colours and general appearance. Both also agree in the peculiar direction of the subapical nerves of the wings."
