GENUS HOPLOPHOEA. 549 



almost entirely filled up by the genital and anal plates, 

 which are ordinarily strongly convex. The abdomen 

 usually bears several longitudinal rows of long, seti- 

 form, or rod-like hairs. 



The Genital and Anal Plates are, as before stated, 

 very large and convex, they are close together, and fill 

 up practically the whole opening of the notogastral 

 plate the genital are usually the wider and squarer, 

 and have a concave anterior margin which facilitates 

 the passage of the legs when retracted or protruded. 

 This edge is not a mere simple edge, but in H. magna^ 

 E. dasijjnts, &c., first projects a little, forming a ridge 

 directed forward and strongest at the outer angles, 

 then turns upward towards the interior of the body, 

 then rises, forming a second ridge parallel to the first, 

 leaving a deep curved sulcation between, and then 

 passes again perpendicularly upward, terminating in a 

 broad edge, as seen in fig. 13. The exterior lateral 

 edge has an almost similar structure, but the second 

 ridge is not so much developed, and the whole upturned 

 part is smaller. When the aspis is closed down its 

 edge is received by the curved sulcation above named. 

 The anal plates also have the anterior and exterior 

 lateral edges bent upward almost at a right angle, the 

 former slopes a little and thus passes rather under the 

 slightly projecting posterior edge of the genital plates ; 

 at the inner corner of this margin of each anal plate is 

 the singular chitinous projection shown in fig. 13. 

 At the posterior outer angle of the anal plates there is 

 generally a flat, shelf -like projection of some kind, 

 most developed in H. magna, which serves as a stop to 

 prevent the plate passing out of the body. There are 

 generally four or five large hairs, thickened in tbe 

 middle, set just inside the inner edge of each anal 

 plate, and these hairs ordinarily project between the 

 plates. In H. ardua a singular arrangement of the 

 genital and anal plates exists, not found, as far as I 

 am aware, in any other creature in the famil}^ except 

 probably in the closely allied species which Berlese 



