io6 Shaw, Australian Blattidce. [yj 



Vict. Nat. 

 XXXI 



cf)xal borders, and more scabrous. The faint brownish edge 

 of the coxae can only be seen in a good Hght, and is indistinguish- 

 able in many examples. The denticulations of the supra-anal 

 lamina vary in number from 5 to 10 in different specimens. 

 They also usually vary in number on opposite sides of the 

 same specimen. A long series was examined. 

 Platyzosteria castanea, Bruuner. 



This species, which is common in the Healesville district of 

 Victoria, assumes a characteristic attitude when disturbed, and 

 this attitude is, as far as I know, peculiar to itself. When 

 found on the ground under loose wood or bark the insect runs 

 quickly under leaves or twigs, or other small cover which 

 may be adjacent ; but if the ground is bare of such cover it 

 tilts forward on the vertex, and straddles out the posterior 

 legs, supporting itself in a vertical position on the head and 

 posterior tarsi, and showing the ventral surfaces of the coxae, 

 which are also margined with ochreous. In this position it 

 remains rigid for some time, and does not move if touched by 

 the hand or by a twig. In assuming this attitude it will squirt 

 a foetid fluid at the approaching hand, and this may be felt 

 as a fine spray at a distance of 6 or 7 inches. 

 Cutilia subbifasciata, Tepper. 

 Drymaplaneta subbifasciata, Tepp., Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Aust., 



xvii., p. 112 (1893). 

 Platyzosteria subbifasciata, Shelf., Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1909, 

 p. 286. 



Mr. Tei)per, as Mr. Shelford points out, founded his genus 

 Drymaplaucta on an immature condition of the sub-genital 

 lamina: and a " cot\^pe " of this species, which the South 

 Australian Museum kindly presented to me recently, is un- 

 doulitcdly an immature. As adult examples in good condition 

 arc now available, it seems advisable to select types of the <^ 

 and 9. This 1 have done, and add a note of differences 

 i)etween the adult insect and Mr. Tepper's description, viz. : — 



The broad lateral yellow margin, which in the immature 

 extends to the abdominal tergites, is in the adult confined to 

 the thoracic tergites, although in some specimens it may in 

 part persist as a series of spots. Rutliments of elytra present, 

 and entirely separated from the mesonotum, usually piceous, 

 but in some examples with the disc ochreous, or with ochreous 

 spots. Yellow ])order also extending along the posterior 

 border of the mesonotimi, interrupted in the middle. Posterior 

 metatarsus long, biseriately spined beneath, its pulvillus 

 occupying about one-third of the joint. Sub-genital lamina of 

 the 9 of the usual bivalvular Blattine form. 



Lciwlh.—o, 24 mm. ; v, 27 nun. 



