PSYCHE. 



"ORGAN OF THE CAMBRIDGE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB 



EDITED BY B. PICKMAN MANN. 

 Vol. L] Cambridge, Mass., February, 1876. [No. 22. 



Odoriferous Glands in Phasmidae. 



Specimens of Anisomorpha, probably A. buprestoides Stoll', 

 were recently sent me from Texas by Mr. J. Boll, with the 

 statement that when the females were captured they spurted 

 from the prothorax, somewhat after the manner of bombardier 

 beetles, a strong vapor, which slightly burnt the skin ; when 

 the females were seized by the males, a thick fluid oozed from 

 the same spot. Say gave a similar account in his American 

 Entomology, nearly fifty years ago, on the authority of Mr. 

 Peale, who told him that specimens of A. buprestoides, when 

 taken, discharge " a milky white fluid from two pores of 

 the thorax, diffusing a strong odor, in a great measure like that 

 of the common Gnaphalium or Life Everlasting " ; a plant, 

 he adds, " growing near the place where they occurred." An- 

 other instance is recorded by Bates, who named a S. American 

 species Phasma putidum, because, when it is seized, " a dark 

 liquor oozes from the mouth and other parts of the body, emit- 

 ting a most peculiar and disagreeable odor." 



Mr. Boll attributes this power to the females only, but 

 both sexes certainly possess, with equal distinctness, the pores 

 through which the fluid or vapor passes. These are situated 

 one on each side of the prothorax at its upper anterior ex- 

 tremity, at the bottom of a large and deep pit, opening out- 

 ward and a little forward, its upper and posterior borders with 

 abrupt sides. These pores, or foramina repugnatoria, as they 

 may be called from their analogy with the pores in Myriapods, 

 so named by Waga, greatly resemble stigmata, and have actu- 

 ally been mistaken for a prothoracic pair by Stal, 1 and are de- 



> Recensio Orthopterorum, III, 54-55, § 156-157. 



