On some new species of Orthopterous and Homopterous Insects. 23 



a start, as it were, to these phenomena, will be found to be one in 

 which rapid chemical change is taking place ; one, which, under 

 the influence of light, &c. acting upon substances brought into 

 contact with it, brings about a change in these ; these changes 

 again reacting upon itself. I cannot help believing that such will 

 prove to be the explanation of the various phenomena of animal 

 and vegetable growth. On a chemical difference in the consti- 

 tution of this primary organ, — a difference not likely ever to be 

 appreciable by chemists, any more than microscopists will ever 

 be able to discern the ultimate atoms of bodies, — may possibly 

 depend the endless variety of forms put on by organic nature. 

 From a germ of great external similarity they all alike originate, 

 but that these germs are not really alike is shown by their sub- 

 sequent behaviour. They have different properties : does not this 

 imply a different constitution ? a different chemical constitution ? 

 This view may be supposed by some to involve a belief that a 

 living organism may owe its origin to mere physical circum- 

 stance ; to an accidental chemical combination ; but the very 

 laws of chemistry would suffice to negative such a proposition— 

 laws which would prove the impossibility of an adventitious pro- 

 duction of such a combination as must be conceived to exist in 

 the primary structure of a living organism. The views I advance 

 would rather furnish an argument in favour of the necessity of 

 there being a First Great Cause, and should raise our ideas of the 

 glorious power of the Creator, who by the employment of one 

 simple law could raise up such an infinite variety of beautiful and 

 interesting forms as living nature presents to our view. 



IV. — Descriptions of some apparently new species of Orthopterous 

 and Homopterous Insects. By Adam White, M.E.S., Assistant 

 in the Zoological Department of the British Museum. 



[With a Plate] 



Order ORTHOPTERA. 



Family Locustid^e. 



Genus Acanthodis, Serv. 



Locusta [Acanthodis) impcrialis, White. PI. I. f. 1. Head yel- 

 low in front, the rest brown. Body of a deep brownish black, 

 shaded with lighter brown below. Thorax nearly as wide as long, 

 comparatively smooth, yellowish green. Elytra somewhat bulging 

 at the base, black and brown, with from three to six small yel- 

 lowish green subtriangular spots on the outer edge, the greater 

 part of inner margin of a most beautiful green, with three large 



