180 [August. 



for laying. In comparison with the size of the insect, the egg is 

 cei'tainly large, being about | muu long ; five were enough to fill all 

 available space in the abdomen of the mother-bug. The egg is tubular, 

 rounded j^osteriorly, slightly curved towards the anterior end, which is 

 terminated by a distinct rounded rim, beneath which the egg is con- 

 stricted. The colour is brownish-yellow, with the rim and about a 

 quarter of the length of the egg behind it, pitch-black. The eggs are 

 probably laid within the stems of the furze-bushes, as that is the food- 

 plant, and the 5 is provided with a saw-like ovipositor, a structure 

 which in other instances implies the insertion of the eggs in vegetable 

 tissues. If this is so, they should probably be looked for in the younger 

 and more tender shoots of the plant, for altliough the saws are set in a 

 strong framework which presumabl}^ serves as an attachment for relatively 

 })0werful muscles, and have a very distinct serration, yet the whole 

 apparatus is so small that it would jjrobably not be able to pierce the 

 hard wood of the Uhw. 



1 have not yet been able by actual observation to determine the 

 number of larval instars, nor have 1 seen the very youngest of them, 

 the newly-hatched bug, but from the two instances that I have seen, 

 I should judge tliat, as v.ith the rest of the T/'iit/idar, very little 

 external change beyond the development of wings and hemielytra takes 

 place in their progress through larval life, and it may with every proba- 

 bility be concluded that the younger stages in this case very closely 

 resemble the nymph or last larval instar. This presents several 

 structural features of considerable interest, and may be described as 

 follows from examples taken in Epping Forest on July 13tli, 1912 : — 

 Length just over 2 mm. ; oval, dull black above, covered with minute 

 white stellate, sessile, spine-like hairs ; abdomen beneath slightly tinged 

 Avith red ; hinder part of head and angles of pronotum pinkish ; the 

 hairs (or perhaps one should call them spines) either tri- or quadri- 

 radiate, the triradiate ones bearing a close resemblance on a smaller scale 

 to the spicules of the sj^onge Gruniia ; occasional examples of quinque- 

 radiate hairs ma}- be seen ; similar hairs, though less numerous, are 

 found beneath, on the head, sternum, and sides of abdomen, but not on 

 the central part of the latter ; a marginal series of pale spots at the 

 junctions of the abdominal segments ; pronotum pentagonal and 

 centrally carinated, the carina rising l)ehind into a kind of tubercle ; 

 on the head four forward-directed spines, two close to the eyes and 

 between them, and the other two on the froiit margin ; the latter 

 yellowish with dark base ; legs black, except for a broad, pale, ill- 

 defined ring near the apex ; tarsi two-jointed, basal joint exceedingly 



