THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 

 No. 108. DECEMBER 1876. 



XLIV. — Description of a new Species of Mantidge with 

 Pointed Eyes. By Prof. James Wood-Mason. 



The curious little insect described below presents the rare 

 combination of foliaceous cerci anales and j)ointed eyes. 

 Numerous species have been described wherein the eyes are 

 armed with a spine or produced to a point, on which the faceted 

 corneal membrane fails to be developed. Hymcnopus hicornis^ 

 Serv., ScMzocepliala hicornis, Linn., Heterochceta tenuipes^ 

 Westw., Toxodera denticulata^ Serv., Oxytliespis senegalensis^ 

 0. turcomanice, and 0. granulata, Sauss., &c., all have the 

 eyes thus fashioned. But in three only of these, viz. in Toxo- 

 dera denticulataj Oxytliespis turcomanice^ and Heterochceta 

 tenuipes^ do we also meet with foliaceous anal appendages. 



With the first two of these it has very little besides in 

 common ; but it so closely resembles the last in the relative 

 proportions of the different parts of the body, in the structure 

 and texture, and even in the style of coloration of the organs 

 of flight, and in its very short supraanal plate, that I can 

 refer it to the same genus Avith some degree of confidence — a 

 course which is, I think, much to be preferred to making for 

 it a new generic name while we are in ignorance of the struc- 

 tural details of the head in Westwood's species. The new 

 species in this respect closely approaches the interesting form 

 recently described by M. de Saussure under the name of 

 Compsothespis anomala. 



Heterochceta tricolor^ sp. nov. 



? . Body slender and filiform. Head pentagonal, much as 

 in Compsothespis anomala, except that it is a little broader than 

 Ann, & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol. xviii. 30 



