THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 93 



A NEW SPECIES OF ORTHOPTERA, FORMING A NEW 



GENUS AND FAMILY. 



BY E. M. WALKER, TORONTO. 



While collecting on Sulphur Mountain, Banff, Alberta, on 

 June 29th, 1913, Mr. T. B. Kurata and the writer captured two 

 specimens of a peculiar wingless thysanuriform insect, which at 

 once struck me as very remarkable on account of their 

 possessing an ovipositor like that of the Tettigonida* (Locustidse) . 

 The two specimens, both females, are of about the same size, and, 

 judging by the size and appearance of the ovipositor, are probably 

 mature. They were found running about like centipedes under the 

 stones of a talus-slope at an altitude of about 6500 feet. Con- 

 siderable search was made for more specimens, but without success. 



A study of these specimens shows that they are genuine 

 Orthoptera, but of a very generalized type and cannot be placed 

 in any of the known families of this order. Their appearance is 

 somewhat suggestive of the termites, or, still more, of the nymphs 

 of the Plecoptera, but that they are true Orthoptera is at once 

 apparent, in spite of the total absence of wings, on an examination 

 of the mouth-parts, the cervical and thoracic sclerites and the ovi- 

 positor. 



This insect forms the type species of a new genus, Gryllgblatta, 

 and a new family, Grylloblattidce. 



Grylloblattidae, new family, and Grylloblatta, new genus. 



Body elongate, slender, depressed, thysanuriform; head blattoid, 

 somewhat flattened, obliquely attached to the prothorax; epicranial 

 suture distinct; antennae arising close to the fronto-clypeal suture, 

 shorter than the body, with 26 to 29 segments; eyes small, widely 

 separate; ocelli absent; labium with glossee and paraglossae separate 

 and well differentiated. Thoracic nota flattened, quadrate, decreasing 

 in size caudad; meso- and meta-episterna well developed, oblique, 

 each with a horizontal fold, apparently dividing it into two parts; 

 epimera small; sternal plates small, separated by considerable areas 

 of soft cuticle; thoracic stigmata two, the first close to the hind 

 margin of the prothorax, the second upon the mesepimeron. Legs 

 cursorial; coxae large, especially the first pair; femora, tibiae and 

 tarsi with a few slender scattered spines, tibial spurs two, an outer 



