TWO NKW SPECIES OF PHYLLOMORPHINiE. 



89 



The old Swedish traveller in South Africa, Dr. Sparrman, 

 who lirst discovered (1775) the curious Pepliricus paradoxus, was 

 impressed by its mimetic resemblance to a leaf. He narrates : — 

 " At noontide I sought for shelter among the branches of a 

 shrub from the intolerable heat of the sun. Though the air 

 was now extremely still and calm, so as hardly to have shaken 

 an aspen leaf, yet I thought I saw a little withered, pale, 

 crumpled leaf, eaten as it were by caterpillars, fluttering from 

 the tree. This appeared to me so very extraordinary, that I 

 thought it worth my while suddenly to quit my verdant bower in 

 order to contemplate it ; and I could scarcely believe my eyes 

 when I saAv a live insect, in shape and colour resembling the 

 fragment of a withered leaf, with the edges turned up and eaten 

 awa}' as it were by caterpillars, and at the same time all beset 

 with prickles. Nature, by this peculiar form, has certainly 

 extremely well defended and concealed, as it were in a mask, 

 this insect from birds and its other diminutive foes."* 



We know most about the European species. Phijllomorpha 

 laciniata has been well observed. Bolivar has described its 

 stridulation and mode of carrying eggs ; t and Giard has also 

 written on its habits. I 



Pephricus frag His, sp. n. 



Varying in colour from 

 pale creamy white to ochra- 

 ceous ; pronotum with the 

 base slightly concave, the 

 lateral lobes broadly gibbous 

 anteriorly, their apices some- 

 what obliquely truncate, the 

 abdominal lobes broad with 

 their apices truncate, a more 

 or less distinct transverse 

 fuscous fascia crossing abdo- 

 men beyond middle and ex- 

 tending through the fourth 

 and longest lobe ; the upper 

 surface varies in the number 

 and position of some scattered 

 small fuscous spots. 



Long. ^ and ? 12 millim. 



Hab. West Africa; N. Nigeria (G. Migeod— Brit. Mus.) ; 

 Abyssinia (Brit. Mus.). 



Allied to P. pellicula, Westw., but differing by the broader 

 anterior angles of the pronotal lobes, &c. 



P.fragilis, Dist. 



- ' Voyage to Cape of Good Hope,' Engl, transl. 2nd edit., vol. ii. p. 

 t Feuille Natural., xxiv. pp. 43-4 (1894). 

 I Bull, Soc. Eat. Fr. p, hxix. (1895). 



16. 



