36 Transactions of the Society. 



perfect creatnre, and each change of skin, is preceded by an inert 

 stage, -wliich usually lasts some days, and in some instances 

 some two or three weeks, the time varies greatly : during this 

 stage they appear perfectly dead, and, as before stated, they fre- 

 quently puff up, the skin becoming inflated ; if they be mounted 

 for microscopic specimens when in this state, they usually collapse 

 altogether. I have also remarked that if, after this puffing up 

 occurs, the back shrinks and becomes concave before the ecdysis, it 

 is a tolerably sure sign that the animal is dead. In several 

 instances the day before the perfect creature (or more mature 

 nymph) emerges, I haVfe observed a slow, but regular, rhythmic 

 pulsation taking place within the inert creature ; in many 

 instances a large squarish brown patch is seen through the semi- 

 transj)arent dorsal surface of the abdomen ; this Claparede considers 

 to be the liver ; it sends out two long cones or horns anteriorly, one 

 on each side ; each of these ends in most instances in a black glan- 

 dular-looking spot, very near the air-sac which lies immediately 

 within each stigma ; it is by this spot that the pulsation may be 

 most clearly seen ; it may be observed to be suddenly retracted, 

 and then very slowly advanced again to the old position, to be 

 once more retracted as soon as it reaches it. I have never noticed 

 the pulsation in the active creature, nor in the inert one until a 

 day or so before emerging. I have specially noticed this movement 

 in the inert nymphs of Notaspis hi]pilis and Orihata Lapidaria. 



Although many of the nymphs are extremely curious, I had not 

 at all expected to be able, in this paper, to introduce any unrecorded 

 creature rivalling in beauty and interest the extraordinary nymph of 

 Tegeocranus latus figured in my last paper ; indeed, I had quite 

 abandoned all hope of doing so, when one day, at the Land's End, 

 just as I was throwing away a piece of moss which I had been 

 examining, I suddenly noticed a creature on it which might well 

 have been mistaken for a vegetable rather than an animal organism, 

 but which, you will probably think, is not surpassed, even by the 

 last-named nymph. I succeeded in breeding my capture through 

 its changes, and it turned out to be the nymph of an unrecorded 

 species of Leiosoma, which I propose to call palmicincta. 



The nymph is fully described in its place in the second part of 

 this paper. Like T. latus, it carries the dorsal abdominal portions of 

 all its cast skins concentrically upon its back, but instead of carry- 

 ing them flat as latus does, they rise in a low pyramid ; each skin is 

 bordered by a series of beautiful palmate hairs, or scales, of 

 remarkable size, projecting from its edge ; each scale is formed of 

 black, radiating nervures reticulated by transverse ones, the whole 

 being covered by a transparent membrane, which in daylight 

 displays iridescent colours. These beautiful objects make a broad 

 border round the abdomen, entirely covering the cephalothorax and 



