438 Miscellaneous. 



(salivary ?) glands, which open always into the mouth and never 

 into the forcipules, and of the Malpighian tubes, and, finally, a 

 large number of histological observations which it is impossible for 

 me to summarize. 



The physiological j)art comprises special researches on alimenta- 

 tion, on the manner in which the Lithobii kill their prey, and, lastly, 

 on digestion properly so called. In Cryptops the aliments accumu- 

 late in the spacious buccal intestine of which I have spoken above, 

 are retained there by the valvular apparatus, and are there trans- 

 formed by the digestive liquid secreted by the middle intestine 

 situated further on. 



In the other Myriopods the principal digestive phenomena take 

 place in the true middle intestine. The liquid secreted is neutral, 

 sometimes slightly alkaline, in LitJiohius, Gryptops, Hlmantanum,, 

 Geophilus, and Glomeris ; in hdus alone it is slightly acid. This 

 liquid forms an emulsion of the fats, and evidently dissolves the 

 albuminoid substances. 



I have been unable completely to elucidate the function of the 

 anterior glands. The arrangement of their excretory canals and 

 other characters prove that in the carnivorous Myriopods these are 

 not venomous glands * : but their secretion, at least in Lithobius and 

 Himantarium, does not possess the characteristic property of the 

 true saliva of the vertebrates and of insects ; it does not transform 

 starch into glucose. 



As far as we can judge, the Malpighian tubes of the Myriopoda 

 act precisely in the same manner as those of insects ; they produce 

 uric acid, urates (e. g. urate of sodium), and oxalate of calcium. 

 They are therefore depuratory urinary organs. — 3Iem. da VAcad. 

 des Sci.de Belgique, tome xlii. 1876. 



0)1 the Femoral Brushes of the Mautidae and their Function. 

 By J. Wood-Mason, Esq, 



The author states that, while recently examining a specimen of a 

 species of Hierodula from the Nicobars, his attention was arrested 

 by two brightish oblong spots, situated one near the distal end of 

 each of the fore femora and nearer to the lower dentate than to the 

 upper entire edge of the joint — and that, on examining these spots 

 more closely by the aid of a lens, he had found that they were 

 brushes of stiff hairs, all of which were directed away from the 

 upper edge of the femur, some of which (namely, those forming 

 the upper half of the brushes) were closely appressed to the sur- 

 face and threw back the light strongly, while the rest projected 

 almost straight out from it and were the stiffest of all. He had 

 been unable to find any account of these structures in any entomo- 

 logical work to which he had access ; and neither M, de Saussure, 

 who had recently published an admirable account of the external 

 anatomy and habits of the whole family, nor Dr. Fischer, the author 

 of the learned Latin work on the Orthoptera of Europe, had made 



* The true venomous glands, which I have succeeded in isolating in 

 some species, will form the subject of a future niomoir. 



