tlie Life IThtory of Gongyhts gonriylni(lc<<. 138 



straightened and curved ventral-wards till it lies beside 

 the limbs; the skin then splits along the dorsal side, and 

 the prothorax emerges as a loop, the head flexed upon the 

 ventral side of the thorax is drawn out followed by tlie 

 antennge, and the pairs of legs in serial order ; lastly, after 

 the limbs have regained a hold on their support, the 

 terminal extremity of the abdomen is freed. At this stage 

 the insect is quite white, and has a bloated appearance 

 owing to the great size of its abdomen, which is twice that 

 which it will assume later, when curved dorsal-wards; 

 even the eyes are covered by a white film, and only the 

 narrower joints of the legs and the prothorax are coloured 

 a pinkish-brown ; after a few minutes the return to the 

 ordinary shape and coloration is effected. The above 

 process is repeated at each moult, and is substantially that 

 which the newly-hatched nymph undergoes when freeing 

 itself from the enveloping egg-membrane. The distention 

 of the abdomen throughout the act, possibly with air, 

 seems to play a very important part in freeing the insect 

 from its discarded skin. 



Colour CJumges. 



At birth the prothoracic disc is relatively small and 

 inconspicuous. It is a greyish- white colour on its ventral 

 aspect, and the central black spot is absent. The azure 

 colour is only fully developed at the seventh moult, five 

 months after hatching, and the purple coloration of the 

 internal aspect of the coxae, and the purple and black 

 bands on the dorsal surface of the abdomen become well 

 defined about the same period. These colonics are however 

 faintly indicated earlier than this, after the second moult. 

 The ground colour of the young nymphs is for the first 

 moult or two a greyish-brown, after this the nymphs are 

 very variously coloured, either light grey, brown, black, 

 pink, or light or dark red. The whole body of the nymph 

 assumes one general colour, the markings observed in the 

 later stages being faintly indicated. 



Mr. Shelford, in " Notes on Bornean Mantises," con- 

 tributed to the " Zoologist," 1903, states that the young of 

 Hymenopus hicornis have the power of adopting the 

 colour of their surroundings at the time of moulting ; thus 

 they take the colour of a blossom on which they may be 

 sitting. I did not carry out any experiments in this 

 direction with the young of Gongylus, but it is very 



