132 Captain C. E. Williams' Notes on 



They soon free themselves from this covering, which 

 remains hanging from the ootheca, and enter upon an 

 independent existence within a quarter of an hour of 

 hatching. At birth they are a tallowy-white colour with 

 the exception of the limbs and prothorax, which are a 

 pinkish-brown colour. This white colour is changed for a 

 brown hue very shortly, about twenty minutes after hatch- 

 ing. The nymphs having freed themselves of their invest- 

 ing membrane at once proceed to climb upwards until 

 they reach the extremity of the branch, where they take 

 up their position for the rest of their jjupal existence on 

 the under-side of a leaf or twig. They resemble the full- 

 grown nymph in shape from the moment of hatching, and 

 adopt the inverted position at once. At first they have a 

 hairy appearance, but a lens shows this to be caused by 

 the keel-like expansions and edges and angles of the dorsal 

 and ventral plates, which are relatively exaggerated in the 

 minute nymph. 



The nymphs undergo eleven or twelve ccdyses between 

 the date of hatching and the change to the imago stage. 

 The period between ecdyses is, in the early stages, from 

 eighteen to twenty days — and in the later months this 

 period appears to be prolonged to twenty-eight or thirty 

 days. I believe that the nymph effects its escape from the 

 egg-case by the expansion and peristaltic writhings of its 

 abdomen, and not by any hair-like projections of its cerci 

 and limbs as is stated by Trimen in the case of another 

 species. The limbs indeed are twisted up together like a 

 bundle of string, and they and tiie exoskeleton are quite 

 soft, and coidd not be used to assist the escape from the 

 egg-case ; moreover the nymph is enclosed in a silken 

 shroud, clad in which it emerges from the egg. 



The act of ecdysis deserves a short description. The 

 night or early morning is usually chosen for this function, 

 for until it is complete, and perhaps for half-an-hour after, 

 the soft succulent body of the nymph is liable to be seized 

 by one of its comrades, who practise cannibalism for the 

 first few months of free existence, and devour each other 

 readily if a favourable opportunity occurs, or by other foes, 

 spiders, wasps, etc. Before commencing the change the 

 nymph retires to a elark nook behind dense foliage and 

 attaches itself to its support by the terminal claws of all 

 its six legs, which are bunched together, the autennse are 

 also brought into line Vv'ith the limbs, and the abdomen is 



