(507) 15. South African Neuroptera. I. By P. ESBEN-PETERSEN, Silke-borg, Denmark. THE following descriptions and notes are based on material belonging to the South African Museum, Cape Town, and I take herewith the liberty to express to the Director, Dr. L. Pc'ringuey, my best thanks for his kind permission to work out the material belonging to that institution. Unfortunately descriptions and notes concerning the ISTeuropterous fauna of South Africa are scattered in a large number of periodicals and treatises, but I hope to succeed in giving complete lists of the fauna. Many of the species described from South Africa are certainly synonymous with species described previously. Unfortunately I have also made mistakes, but when such mistakes too often take place I think it is mostly due to the fact that many species are described on one specimen only differing from the typical form. In the Clirysopidae it is quite inadmissible to describe a new species on a single specimen, unless the specimen possesses characters so distinct as to enable one to separate the species from already known ones. Brownish, reddish or greyish markings on head, thorax and abdomen of the Ghrysopid^e are not at all characters to rely upon. Such markings are often produced by the drying of the insect. Likewise the colour of the uervures in the wings is very often dependent on the more or less complete maturity of the insect. The number of cross-veins in the graduated series is also, as a rule, a very poor and unreliable character. OSMYLIDAE. GEN. EHIPIDOSMYLUS. EHIPIDOSMTLUS INTERLINEATUS. Osmylus interlliieatus, MacLachlau, Ent, Monthly Mag. vol. vi, p. 199, 1869 (Natal?). Khipidosmylns interlineatus, Kriiger, Stett. entom. Zeit. p. 25, 1913; ibid. p. 74, 1914. One fine specimen (?) of this interesting species from M'fongosi, Zululand, May, 1891 (W. E. Jones leg.). The specimen agrees very 40
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