SYNOPSIS OF PHASMIDiE. 



XlAVING been recently led to study the singular and interesting 

 family of Orthopterous Insects, termed Phasmidce, in order to elu- 

 cidate the characters of the sixteen species described in the first part 

 of my ' Entomology of Australia,' I have been induced to arrange 

 the materials collected for that purpose in the form of an Essay, the 

 object of which is to present a complete list of all the recorded in- 

 sects belonging to the family, and to embrace at the same time 

 descriptions of a considerable number of new forms which have 

 fallen under my observation. The result of my researches may 

 form a not uninteresting addition to the small stock of knowledge 

 at present possessed by entomologists with regard to this striking 

 but neglected group. 



Of the extent of this knowledge, and its gradual development, 

 some idea may be formed from the following outline of what has 

 been written upon the subject since the days of Linnaeus, who first 

 placed these insects in the genus Gryllus, but afterwards removed 

 them to that of Mantis. In this latter mode of arrangement he was 

 followed by Gmelin, and by Fabricius in his earlier publications ; 

 but in the year 1787, Stoll, in his ' Representations exactement 

 coloriees d'apres Nature des Spectres,' &c, proposed to form the 

 Spectres into a distinct family (genus) from Mantis. To this genus, 

 in the commencement of his work, he gave the name of Spectrum: 

 at the end, however, he gave a list of the species figured by him 

 from various Dutch collections, and amounting in number to 27, 

 with Latin specific names, to which he prefixed the generic appel- 

 lation of Phasma. He divided the genus thus formed into two fa- 

 milies, characterized as follows : 



" 1. Les pieds anterieurs plus longs que les posterieurs; le corps 

 tout a fait cylindrique. 



" 2. Le corps plat; les pieds anterieurs plus courts que les poste- 

 rieurs. Dans quelques especes les femellesont les etuis aussi longs 

 que les ailes." 



In the ' Entomologia Systematica emendata et aucta,' of Fa- 

 bricius, published in 1793, and consequently some years after its 

 date, the preceding work is left unnoticed ; but the Supplement, 

 published in 1798, contains references to a few* of the figures given 



* Although, as I have stated above, Stoll figured 27 species of Phasma, Fabricius 

 referred to only 8 of these figures ; and Lichtenstein, in the paper subsecpuently 



B 



