Mr. R. ShelforJ's Studies of the Blattidie. 511 



American species of Epilampra in the Hope Museum, 

 Oxford, I had occasion to examine closely a series of 

 specimens of Epilamj)ra hurvieisteri, Guer., collected in 

 Brazil by the distinguished traveller, W. J. Burchell, and 

 I observed that one female example had been preserved 

 with two young larvse actually emerging from the tip of 

 the abdomen, and that they were still partially shrouded 

 in some shreds of the embryonic membranes. The specimen 

 is numbered " 1400 " and is the only one of the series that 

 does bear a number. Those who have had occasion to 

 study Burchell's collections know that he attached num- 

 bers to the specimens that were of special interest to him 

 and his observations on such specimens were recorded in 

 his note-books under corresponding numbers. Unfortu- 

 nately Burchell's note-books with records of specimens 

 numbered from 1345 onwards are lost, but we can be 

 tolerably sure that the young larvae emerging from the 

 abdomen of his specimen No. 1400 did not escape the 

 notice of this keen observer and that the specimen was 

 consequently numbered and the fact actually recorded. 

 To Burchell then may well be accorded the credit of first 

 discovering the phenomenon of viviparity in Blattidm. 



In Sarawak, Borneo, I captured a female of Pscudo- 

 pJwraspis nebulosa, Burm., with numerous young larvae 

 clinging to the under surface of the abdomen, and in the 

 Hope Museum is a female of Phlcbonotus palle7is, Serv., 

 with the following label attached : — " Ceylon. J. Sbaniforth 

 Green. Carries its live young beneath its wing-covers. 

 1878." In the females of this species the tegmina are 

 large and convex, the wings somewhat reduced and the 

 abdomen above is concavely depressed, so that a brood- 

 chamber is formed under the tegmina in which there is 

 ample room to accommodate several young larvae. It is 

 hardly reasonable to suppose that these two species of 

 Epilariiprin^ deposit an ootheca containing newly-fertilized 

 eggs and stay beside the ootheca until the young larvae 

 hatch out and return to the mother from whom they 

 originated. It is, on the contrary, in the highest degree 

 probable that the eggs are retained in the body of the 

 mother until they attain maturity, but whether they are 

 enclosed in a horny ootheca lying in a brood-sac or 

 whether the ootheca is absent or much reduced as in 

 Panchlora viridis is not known. I have dissected the 

 female Pseud oj)horas2ns nebulosa that I c iptured with her 



