iQii.] GRAVEI.Y & Mauuk : Tree-haunting NeuYopter a. 107 



below the posterior margin, each bearing four stout blunt spines 

 which are quite black. 



General colour in life dirty whitish faintly tinged with 

 pink dorsally. Head, mandibles, and pronotum brownish above, 

 the first and last of these covered with a thin layer of fine 

 dust. Meso- and metanotum and abdomen whitish with a faint 

 bluish mid-dorsal line, and a pair of conspicuous black dorso- 

 lateral lines; a slightly irregular row of brown spots on each 

 side between the mid-dorsal and dorso-lateral lines; and numerous 

 spots of the same colour scattered more or less symmetrically out- 

 side the latter. The mesonotum however, and to a less extent 

 the metanotum, are obscured in life, like the head and pronotum, 

 by symmetrically arranged plate-like layers of fine dust. Below, 

 the mandibles are brown and the front margin of the head black ; 

 the rest of the body is whitish. 



Cocoon and Pupa (figs. 8 — 12). — Cocoon composed of white 

 silk, specked with particles of fine dust ; 7 mm. in diameter exter- 

 nally ; constructed in a hollow of the bark ; consisting of a tough 

 outer and a soft inner layer, the latter almost spherical, the former 

 simply stretched across the hollow so as to roof it in and protect 

 the latter. 



Pupa slightly more than 5 mm. long in its natural position with 

 the head and abdomen flexed. Eyes large, greyish ; antennae curved 

 back above the eyes ; mandibles strong and horny, each strongly 

 toothed on the biting margin, the teeth becoming progressively 

 smaller behind— the distal tooth especially being much larger than 

 the penultimate one; third legs folded separately from the other 

 two pairs and almost entirely concealed from view by the wings, 

 from beneath the extremities of which the claw is seen projecting 

 (fig. 8) ; wings very dark coloured, almost black; the rest of the 

 pupa dirty whitish, speckled with brown. 



Comparisons with prkviousi^y described Species. 

 Ascalaphidae. 



As noted above the two Ascalaphid larvae here described differ 

 from all whose habits are at present fully known in that they live 

 upon tree-trunks where their form and colour alone render them 

 sufficiently inconspicuous to allow them to capture their prey ; and 

 they do not attempt to conceal themselves further. 



One of them has been reared to maturit}'-, and proves to belong 

 to the genus Pseudoptyiix, Week. This genus belongs to the sub- 

 family Acmonotinae, which only includes one other known genus 

 Acmonotus. The only larvae belonging to this sub-family that have 

 hitherto been described are of the latter genus. Van der Weele has 

 described and figured the larva of A. sabidosus, Walk. (1908, pp. 

 204-5, fig. 157), and a comparison of his account with that of the 

 Pseudoptynx of the present paper will show that the former differs 

 from the latter in many respects : notably in the extraordinaril}' 

 broad head (which is much broader than long), the long single 



