DIESTRAJIMENA MARMORATA, HAAN. 229 



respectively, iu a small outhouse at the end of a paved yavd in the 

 garden of a house at St. Leonards. 



It is probable that they were bred there, as Mr. Bloomfield 

 suggested to me, since the ova, as Wiinn has shown, are deposited in 

 crevices in earth, and so can easily be transported from place to 

 place, though they hatch remarkably soon, at least under favourable 

 conditions, as Wiinn's specimens hatched within a day or two of 

 being deposited. 



This is not the first record of the occurrence of these creatures 

 in Europe, for Chopard has recently {Ann. Sor. Ent. France, 1913, p. 

 284) recorded their occurrence in some numbers in a greenhouse at 

 Lille, and they have been established in some place in Germany, 

 certainly since 1904. Hermann Wiinn describes the circumstances 

 and their habits in detail in an article entitled " Beobachtungen iiber 

 eine in Mitteleuropa eingeschleppte Hohlenheuschrecke," in the 

 Zeitschrift fur Insekten-hiolani,', Band V., pp. 82, 113, and 163, 1909. 

 This author refers to their occurrence in greenhouses in Siidmiihle, 

 near Munster in Westphalia, at Lommatsch in Saxony, at Frankfurt- 

 am-Main, Erfurt, Fulda, and Wandsbeck ; at the last place they 

 appear to have been first noticed as long ago as 1903. 



They were at first looked upon as serious enemies to the plants in 

 the hothouses, and doubtless numbers were killed by zealous gardeners, 

 but Wiinn's observations confirm the accepted belief that these 

 creatures are carnivorous, and therefore the friend, rather than the 

 foe, of man. Wiinn found a colony hiding below flfigstones under a 

 hothouse at Fulda. Kept in a suitable terrarium, they refused flowers 

 and leaves, but when apparently hungry ate dates, apple rings, and 

 egg plums, though they refused figs and nuts, but they eagerly 

 devoured chopped-meat and attacked live insects, which their nimble- 

 ness enabled them to catch ; one specimen actually caught and ate an 

 imago of Ktnnorp/ia elpenov which emerged from a pupa in the terra- 

 rium, and small Lepidoptera were readily devoured. 



On June 2oth Wiinn observed a female carrying a spermatophore, 

 which had been attached by a male to her genital opening ; she bent 

 her body and tore it open with her jaws ; it took her about 45 minutes 

 to open the outer covering, and in about an hour and a half the whole 

 thing was removed ; on July 4th she laid her eggs, and the first larva, 

 hatched out on the 6th, and some more a day or two later. The ova 

 are about 1mm. broad by 2mm. long, and the shell, which hardens 

 rapidly after deposition, is sufficiently strong to protect the ovum 

 against severe shocks. 



This curious phenomenon in allied genera has recently been 

 described and discussed in detail in Russian by B. Boldyrefl" in the 

 Eorae Sec. Ent. Tlosa., xL, No. 6, 1913. 



Dicstrannnena belongs to the group H/uiii/iiilopJionr, related to our 

 South European Dolichojunlidae, divisions of the Stenopeltnntidae. 

 This is a widelj^-spread and remarkable group of Locimtodea (Plias- 

 yonurodea) : they are devoid of any traces of organs of flight and of 

 auditory apparatus, and the tarsi are laterally compressed, in contra- 

 distinction to all other Locnstodea on which the tarsi are depressed. 

 Like its European relatives, Diestraniviena is a remarkably spidery 

 creature, with extremely long and slender legs and appendages ; the 



