YOnK 

 B O T A "^ i Q A L 



THE ^^Akd'S.^^ 



MONTHLY MICROSCOPICAL JOlJRNAL. 



JANUABY 1, 1870. 



I. — The Structure of the Scales of Certain Insects of the Order 



Thysanura. 



By S. J. McIntire, F.E.M.S. 



(Read be/ore the Eoyal Microscopical Societt, Nov. 10, 1869.) 



Plate XXXVII. 



Some montlis ago I had the honour to submit a few observations to 

 the Eoyal Microscopical Society respecting some insects belonging 

 to the Thysanura, fam. Poduridse — insects which deserve to be 

 better known to microscopists than they hitherto have been, from 

 the single interesting fact, one of many connected with them, that 

 their scales are very beautiful microscopic obejcts. Since then cer- 

 tain views have been put forward relative to the structure of the 

 scales of one of these creatui'es, Lepidocyrtus Curvicollis, which do 

 not harmonize with my own, nor with those enunciated by the late 

 Mr. Kichard Beck, in whose published opinions I entirely concur. 

 By the courtesy of Mr. Joseph Beck I was in'vited last April to 

 inspect the drawings of Podura scales left by his brother, and on 

 seeing them I was agreeably surprised to find that our observations, 

 though quite independent of each other, were upon the same 

 insects. In the drawings, which are exceedingly beautiful, the 

 so-called " bead-like spherules," to quote from the recent papers on 

 the subject, which are forming at the present time a bone of con- 

 tention, are beautifully depicted, and the conclusion one must come 

 to, therefore, is that they were well known to Mr. Beck. It is 

 strange, then, that so acciu'ate an observer as he is known to have 

 been should not have made pubhc the new views respecting the 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXXVII. 



Fig. 1. — Scale of Lepisma Saccharina x about 150 



„ 2. „ Lepisma from Bombay X „ 150 



„ 3. „ Petrobius Maritimus X „ 250 



„ 4. „ Greenhouse Degeeria X „ lotO 



„ 5. „ Templetonia Nitida X „ 1500 



„ 15. „ Degeeria Domestica x ,, 1500 

 VOL. III. B 



