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VI. Observations on Immature Sexuality and Alternate 
Generation in Insects. By B. T. Lowne, 
M.R.C.S. Eng. 
[Read 6th March, 1871.] 
Wuitst in Palestine, in 1864, about the 23rd of January, 
I was encamped with the Rev. H. B. Tristram and party 
at Hnjedi, where I found a large black and yellow species 
of Petasia (Orthoptera), both in its larval and imaginal 
forms, in abundance, feeding upon the leaves of Calo- 
tropis procera. I cannot give the specific name of the 
insect, and I believe it has not hitherto been described. 
I was surprised to find the larvee of this insect copu- 
lating in considerable numbers. Until lately, I knew of 
no similar case, but my friend, Dr. J. A. Power, tells me 
that Ischnodemus sabuleti is frequently taken in the same 
condition, whilst in the so-called pupa-state. 
When in Australia, ten years ago, I remember observ- 
ing numerous individuals of a large wingless blatta in 
the same condition, but this observation has evidently a 
totally distinct value, as the Blatta in question is not 
known to me ever to produce wings: hence this is only 
a similar phenomenon to that observed in the Cimew lec- 
tularius, an apterous, or more strictly speaking, a larval 
form in a sexually mature condition. 
The following facts, also communicated to me by Dr. 
J. A. Power, seem to me to unite these phenomena by 
transitional forms. Several species of Hemiptera, as, for 
instance, Bryocoris pteridis, although sexually mature, 
have a very immature or undeveloped appearance ; others, 
as all the British species of Nabis, rarely attain their 
true imaginal characters in either sex; the female of 
Sphyracephalus ambulans, which is, as a rule, apterous, has 
been known in one or two instances only, to be furnished 
with wings, so that this may considered as a parallel in- 
stance; and, lastly, both sexes of Velia are almost always 
apterous, although they occasionally produce wings. 
I have not included in this list cases in which the 
females only are constantly apterous, because this condi- 
tion may arise from other causes; but where either one 
TRANS. ENT. soc. 1871.—parT u. (May.) 
