PHASMID^, IN THE BEITISH MlJtsEUM. 41» 



logiques" (Mem. Soc. Phys. et d'Hist. Nat. (ieueve, xx.), and 'Mission Scientifiqne au 

 Mexique, Recherches Zool.' vi. (1869-70). All these publications are illustrated with 

 uncoloured plates. 



Between the years 1855 and 1875 the active and industrious l)ut hasty and self- 

 opiniated Swedish entomologist, Dr. Stal, jiuhlished numerous jiapers on Orthoptera, 

 including a revision of the Phasmidce. These are scattered through the various 

 puhlications of the Vetenskaps Akademie of Stockholm, and are not only cast in the 

 form of very comj)licated tables, with numerous exce])tions, which make thein extremely 

 diilicult to follow, but the genera are frequently based on the examination of one or two 

 species oiily ; and lience it becomes difficult to judge how ftir the genera, as restricted by 

 him, correspoml witli those of other authors. Nevertheless his system was considerably 

 in advance of that of Westwood, w ho had regarded the presence or absence of wings as a 

 character of ^^ri'nai'y importance ; and in 1893 Brunner de Wattenwyl, when working 

 out Fea's Burmese collection of Orthoptera in the ' Annali del Museo Civico di Storia 

 Naturale di Genova,' ser. 2, vol. xiii. (or vol. xxxiii. of the whole series), took occasion to 

 sketch out a revision of the Order, including the PhasmidtB, wliich he divided into 

 12 families. The characters on which he relies are the form of the hind ti])ise beneath, 

 whether carinated to the tip or excavated ; the length of the antennae, as compared with 

 tliat of the front femora ; the length of the median segment ; the form of the terminal 

 segments of the abdomen, &c. The median segment is an important character, first 

 utilized by Stiil. In the Phasmidce the first segment of the abdomen is anchylosed with 

 the metathorax so as to form one piece with it, and in some cases so closely that the 

 point of division is barely distingviishable. Among other peculiarities, the suj)ra-anal 

 lamina of the female is a structure which may be absent or rudimentary, or, as in the 

 genus Promachus, it may be produced into a spine. The oj)erculum of the female is a 

 concave aj^jjiendage on the lower surface of the abdomen, which is sometimes so short as 

 to be covered by it, and sometimes forms a gutter jn-ojecting a long way beyond the 

 abdomen. 



In the main, Brunner de Wattenwyl's divisions apj^ear to be natural, though some 

 of them will prol)ably require more or less modification before they can be finally 

 accepted. I have followed them in the present paper, in which I have endeavoured to 

 describe the greater part of the unpublished species in the Natural History Museum, 

 though there are others which I have passed over, beaiuse the material at my disposal 

 is at present insufiicient. 



One or two additional points of special interest may be noticed before I jjroceed to the 

 systematic part of the paper. The Mantidce, or Praying Insects, are the nearest allies 

 of the Phasmidce ; but the former can always be distinguished by the long spines on the 

 front tibiae, which are used to kill and capture insect prey. No such arrangement is 

 found in the Phasmidce, which are all vegetable feeders. They are insects with 

 imperfect metamorphoses, and sometimes a leg is lost in one of the early stages and is 

 reproduced ; it is then much smaller than the corresponding leg on the opposite 

 side, and its spinous or lobate appendages, if any are present in the normal leg, are 

 reduced or absent. 



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