INTRODUCTION. 1 9 



•with its eggs and placed it in a sand-box half filled with fresh 

 €arth, in such a fashion that the eggs were scattered here and 

 there : but soon the mother took the eggs one after the other 

 between her jaws and transported them. After several days I 

 noticed she had got them all together in a like place on the surface 

 of the earth which she found in a sand-box, and there she re- 

 mained constantly seated on them in such a manner that she 

 seemed to cover them." 



This interesting observation has been confirmed by a number 

 of writers, including Kirby and Spence, Taschenberg, Camerano, 

 and Fritz itiihl. Lesne found a mother sitting on her eggs near 

 Las Palmas (Grand Canary), and Xambeu's remarks on the same 

 habit in Chelklura pyrenaica are worth quoting^: — 



"As soon as the female is fertilized, she digs at the end of the 

 gallery a small excavation in which she places her eggs one by 

 one to the number of 40 or 45, in such a way as to make a 

 small bundle of them, upon which she soon places herself in much 

 the same way as a hen sits on her eggs. It is with a solicitude 

 without equal — an unexampled attachment — that she devotes 

 herself to this maternal task (a rare case in the entomological 

 world), and this continues up to the time of hatching. If during 

 the course of sitting, anything disturbs or exposes her eggs — in 

 raising the stone which shelters them — she takes them with lier 

 mandibles and conceals them in the soil at tlie bottom of her gallery. 



" During the first days which follow the hatching, the young 

 Caelidura are watched by their mother and led, like a hen leads 

 her chicks, towards the places where they will find the means of 

 satisfying their great appetites. Tender vegetables, fruits, worms, 

 larvae, in fact anything is good enough for these gluttons who are 

 insatiable. As soon as their bodies are fortified, and their in- 

 tegument has acquired a certain stability, the mother ceases her 

 care and abandons them to themselves. They tlien disperse, each 

 taking a different direction, and this scattering has become very 

 necessary, as, owing to their very pronounced carnivorous tastes, 

 they would injure and devour one another, which it is necessary 

 to avoid for the preservation of the species." 



Green's ova of Dlplatys greeni were watched by the parent who 

 remained constantly near her eggs, visiting each in turn, and 

 mouthing them in a peculiar manner, as if to keep them clean. 



Geofjraj^ >h ical D istr ih ution. 



Although the state of our knowledge of the Dermapterous fauna 

 of India is still meagre, some generalization may be permitted. 



As would be expected, we find in the Himalayas marked Palae- 

 arctic aflSnities : for instance, the essentially Eurasian genus 

 Anechura is represented by two species, both occurring in Kashmir ; 

 one of these, A. calciatii, is probably peculiar ; the other, 



' (1903) p. 143. 



c2 



