GRAPHIC MICROSCOPY. 



By E. T. D. 



Introduction. 



T is proposed, to 

 publish monthly, 

 under the above 

 title, a lithograph, 

 in colour, of a 

 microscopic object, 

 with short de- 

 scription. The 

 main purpose of 

 the series is to 

 place before our 

 subscribers a 

 counterpart or fac- 

 simile, as far as 

 the art of the 

 lithographer can 

 render and eluci- 

 date it, of a 

 finished painting 

 from nature, exe- 

 cuted with scrupu- 

 lous exactitude and veracity ; both in line and colour, 

 under the most suitable magnifying power, and as 

 a special feature and of equal importance — the best 

 and highest conditions of illumination. The selection 

 of subjects will be made exclusively from objects 

 essentially popular ; — easily obtained and prepared, 

 or purchaseable as a " slide." 



Each article will embody a note of the conditions 

 necessary to arrange the subject most favourable for 

 good observation, and particularly for drawing. 



No. I. — TiNGis Crassiochari. 



The family Tingidae is classed in the Heteropterous 

 Section of the Rychota ; a subdivision of the Order 

 Hemiptera of Latreille. 



There is considerable diversity in the structure of 

 the few groups of which this family Js composed, 

 No. 229. — January 1884. 



strikingly apparent in the variation of the reticula- 

 tions of the filmy membranous dilations on each sids 

 of the thorax, on the scutellum, as well as on the 

 large elytra, which entirely cover the dorsal surface of 

 the abdomen. In foreign, and in many English 

 specimens these reticulations render them objects of 

 singular and especial beauty. 



The number of species is very great. The majority 

 are found in tropical countries, but European speci- 

 mens disclose markings and colour, under magnifica- 

 tion, which vie in splendour with the most gorgeous 

 of the beetle tribes ; as in the Orthoptera, the meta- 

 morphosis is "imperfect," the young Tingis escapes 

 from the egg, in a form more or less closely approach- 

 ing that which it is ultimately destined to assume, 

 and in many cases the principal distinction between the 

 larva and perfect insect consists only in the possession 

 of wings (rarely used) by the latter. The larvae or 

 semi-pup?e, usually of an orange colour, are more 

 convex than when perfectly developed. They are 

 found in the same situations, and often in company 

 with perfect insects. All the species are slow in their 

 motions, and seldom fly ; their size, when mature, 

 rarely exceeds an eighth of an inch in length. Insects 

 belonging to this group (commonly known as bugs) 

 do not present any great diversity of habit, or are, 

 to ordinary vision, sufficiently attractive to court or 

 encourage observation ; and Tingis, in particular, 

 slowly crawling over, and sucking the juices of plants 

 and fruits, to which it imparts a most offensive odour, 

 might still have lived in comparative obscurity, had 

 not the microscope revealed the matchless beauty 

 of its structure, at once elevating it to the distinc- 

 tion of one of the popular microscopic objects of the 

 day. 



Attention was first directed to its peculiar elegance 

 and quaintness by Mr. Richter, in an article published 

 in Science-Gossip, in April 1869, vol. v. page 84. 

 The specimen there described, figured, and provision- 

 ally named Tingis hystricelljt^, was one of a few 

 found in Ceylon, by Mr. Staniforth Green, and 



B 



