IN CERTAIN LEPIDOPTERA. 2S9 



had been dried ; but the impression was strong on my mind that this was indeed the 

 nature of what I was looking at. Thus Mr. Eaton's suggestion solves the problem : 

 these discharged masses consist of paste mainly composed of spermatozoa. 



Ornitiiopteka rhadajianthtts, Boisd. (Plate XXVI. figs. 12-16.) 



Valve much as in Halipliron. The harpe is separable (clean, and with ease) from the 

 parchmenty skin which wholly lines the valve ; the latter itself also separable in the 

 dry state. It is a long narrow plate of shining, transparent, yellow chitine, not quite 

 so much dilated at the base, with a cavity sunken in the middle of the basal half, having 

 abrupt irregular edges. The extremity is slightly oblique, pointing dorsally as in 

 Halipliron, but not in the least dilated, armed with eighteen stout curved teeth, all 

 placed at the very edge, except two or three which are submarginal. There are also 

 a few long black bristles, or spines, scattered over the surface. 



The teeth, as in the allied species, project from the plane ; hence, when the harpe 

 is laid on the stage of the microscope (as at PI. XXVI. fig. 14), an inadequate idea is 

 formed of the power of the armature. When it is tilted, so as to be viewed edgewise, 

 the teeth, which had looked like low cones, are seen to be strong and very acutely 

 pointed semi-crescents, bearing a very close resemblance to the spines on the stem 

 of a rose (see fig. 15, which represents the four teeth on the dorsal margin, viewed 

 sidewise). 



A second example had the form of the valve, and of the harpe, almost exactly the 

 same ; the teeth seventeen, with almost the very same arrangement, even to the trivial 

 circumstance of two on the ventral curve being double. 



In a third example*, the tip or disk of the harpe was a trifle longer, and decidedly 

 bent back (like a hand from the wrist) towards the valve- 

 cavity, the middle part of the arm being bent up to allow '.:^'"~^ ls ^^^> 

 this, so that a longitudinal section of the harpe, viewed Harpe of 0. Ehadamanihus, 

 laterally in the plane of the valve, would assume this form 

 (see woodcut). 



In the intra-abdominal apparatus there is a general agreement with the allied species. 

 But the uncus is rather shorter and stouter, with a less graceful curve. The scaphmm 

 differs much, a difference better expressed by the figures than by words (see PI. XXVI. 

 figs. 12 and 16). There is a similar aristate crest on each side of the uncus, whose points 

 rise above its level; and from the bottom of the lobe projects a long horizontal 

 black tooth on each side. The scaphium-keel is unusually developed, projecting with a 

 sinuous bend, and having a slightly expanded, corrugated point ; its surface bears 

 many irregular, but symmetrical prominences, hollows, and folds of the firm, shining, 

 white tissue, which, here and there, deepens into brown or even black — indicative, I 

 presume, of a more copious supply of the chitinous element to those parts. 



" < tftcn my observations have been limited to single examples of each species : wherever, as above. I have had 

 opportunities of comparing other specimens, I gladly record the results. Their cumulative tendency is to show that 

 the features of the prehensile organs, and especially of the harpe, are constant, and characteristic of species, not 

 varying with individuals. 



.SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. II. 41 



