BY WALTER W. FROGGATT. 359 



Accordingly, in addition to notes on life-histories, I liave given 

 brief descriptions of some of the species, with remarks on habitats 

 and distribution. 



BiTTACUS AUSTRALIS, Klug. 



Klug, Abh. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 100, 11, 1836; B. corethrarncs, 

 Ramb., Hist. Nat. Ins. Neurop. 327, 1842. 



This representative of a world-wide genus has an extensive 

 range over Australia and Tasmania. It is very common in the 

 neighbourhood of S3'^dney in early summer, frequenting Lepto- 

 spermum and Melaleuca bushes when in bloom, to the foliage of 

 which the insects cling by the two fore pairs of legs, letting the 

 long hind ones hang loosely down behind ready to strike at any 

 incautious insect that may come within kicking distance. In 

 general appearance they closely resemble thickset crane flies or 

 *' daddy longiegs "; and apparently, by mimicking these harmless 

 Diptera, they are enabled not only to catch them, but to beguile 

 other helpless creatures within reach of their deadly hind legs. 



General colour reddish-brown marked with black; wings narrow, 

 fuscous, thickly covered with black nervures; stigma of the same 

 colour near the tips. Head long, slender, and turned downwards 

 in front, forming a regular beak furnished with two sharp jaws. 

 Legs long, cylindrical, lightly clothed with hairs, and of a 

 curious annular structure extending into the tarsi, the most 

 remarkable point, however, being the form of the hind legs. 

 Femora thickened like the hind leg of a grasshopper; the tibiae 

 long and slender, with two very long slender spines standing out 

 at the extremity; tarsi composed of five large joints fringed on 

 the undersurface with fine spines, the last joint curving round to 

 a sharp point (taking the place of the tarsal claw); in the living 

 insect the whole of the undersurface of the tarsi is covered with a 

 sticky sponge-like process. When the tarsi touch an insect they 

 curl round, the terminal claw closing over between the apical 

 spines of the tibiae. 



I have frequently taken home specimens of Bittacus and 

 enclosed them in a glass jar into which house flies were introduced. 



