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XXIII. Entomological Notes. By Prof. James Wood- 

 Mason. 



1. On the difference in the form of the Antenna between 

 the Males of Idolomorplia and those of other genera 

 of EmpusidEe, a subfamily of Mantidfe. [Read 

 August 7th, 1878.] 



Antenna are by Burmeister said to be pectinated when 

 the joints have long processes on one side, like the teeth 

 of a comb, and to be bipectinated when such a process 

 issues from each side of the joint. 



" AntenncB bipectinata'''' have been ascribed to the 

 males of all the Empusidce by every entomologist who 

 has written about them. 



Burmeister,* in 1839, proposed the family name Em- 

 pusidce for those species o^ Mantodea in which "the head 

 is prolonged into a conically-ascending process, and in 

 which the males have the antennae bipectinated (^doppelt 

 gelmmmt); he recognized two leading and co-ordinate 

 genera, Blepharis and Empusa, to the former of which 

 he referred only tlie widely-distributed and well-known 

 B. mendica,] while the latter, divided according to the 

 absence or presence and the degree of development of the 

 foliaceous lobes on the legs and different parts of the 

 body, into the three subgenera or sections, Gongylus, 

 Empusa, and Idolomorplia, is made to receive all the rest. 

 The Gongi/li are accordingly Empusce, in which the four 

 posterior femora have three foliaceous lobes at the apex, 

 and the pronotum is also expanded leaflike ; the Empusce 

 have a single lobe at the apex of each of the femora ; the 

 Idolomorphoi being distinguished from them by being 



* Handb. der Entomol. Band. ii. S. 544 et seq. 



f It extends from the Canaries throughout N. Africa, Syria, and Arabia 

 to the banks of the Indus. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1878. — PART lY. (dEC.) U 



