( tesavy ) 
and appear to be very rare, very few specimens having yet 
found their way into public or private collections. The one 
now exhibited was new, and he proposed to name it Prisopus 
fisheri in honour of its discoverer. It resembled other species 
of the genus in its general style of colour and in its adaptational 
structure, but could be readily distinguished from them by 
the very prominent hump or swelling near the base of each 
wing-cover, and more especially by the strong triangular pro- 
cess projecting from each side of the metathorax just in front 
of the hind coxae. These characters, it would be observed, 
were only part of the general scheme of structure and colora- 
tion by which the insect was eminently adapted for conceal- 
ment while living at rest on the bark of a tree. ‘That was in 
fact the place where it was found. Mr. Fisher, he said, could 
not recall whether it was on a sapling or on a small tree, but 
he was quite certain that it was either the one or the other ; 
and he found it in the day-time. ‘The district was part of a 
forest track in a low-lying alluvial plain, with no rocks or 
mountain streams anywhere near. ‘These facts he wished to 
emphasize, because now he had to call attention to a story 
handed down to us from the year 1866 and implicitly believed 
in by different writers up to the present time. In that year 
Andrew Murray published a paper in the “ Annals and Maga- 
zine of Natural History,” giving an account of the aquatic 
habits of the Prisopi, and pointing out with a great wealth of 
detail all the wonderful adaptations of structure which fitted 
these insects for living attached to stones under the water 
of swiftly running mountain streams. No one hitherto had 
questioned the truth of that account, notwithstanding that it 
depended upon “the veracity of the person” who first told 
the story to Mr. Alexander Fry, from whom Murray derived 
it, adding to it, however, by the exercise of his imagination 
all the details necessary to ensure its acceptance. The story 
might possibly have had some slight foundation in fact, 
but he believed it to be essentially untrue. Prisopus /labelli- 
Jormis, the species to which Murray’s account more particu- 
larly applied, presented exactly the same kind of adaptation 
as those to be seen in the specimen shown that evening; and 
it was impossible to believe that the two insects could have 
