COLLECTING PODURIDS. 147 



have a broad, many-toothed molar surface below. The maxillae 

 end in a tridentate lacinia as usual, though the palpi and galea 

 I have not yet studied. 



The genus Auura may be readily recognized by the mouth 

 ending in an acutely conical beak, with its end quite free from 

 the head and hanging down beneath it. The body is short and 

 broad, much tuberculated, while the antennae are short and 

 pointed, and the legs are much shorter than in Lipura, not 

 reaching more than a third of their length beyond the body. 

 Our common form occurs under the bark of trees. 



For the reason that I can find no valid characters for separa 

 ting these three genera as a family from the other Poduras, I 

 am inclined to think that they form, by the absence of the 

 spring, only a subdivision (perhaps a subfamily) of the Podu- 

 ridae. 



The best way to collect Poduras is, on turning up the stick or 

 stone on the under side of which they live, to place a vial over 

 them, allowing them to leap into it; they may be incited to leap 

 by pushing a needle under the vial. They may also be col 

 lected by a bottle with a sponge saturated with ether or chloro 

 form. They may be kept alive for weeks by keeping moist 

 slips of blotting paper in the vial. In this way I have kept 

 specimens of Degeeria, Tomocerus and Orchesella, from the 

 middle of December till late in January. During this time 

 they occasionally moulted, and Tomocerus plumbeus, after shed 

 ding its skin, ate it within a few hours. Poduras feed ordinarily 

 on vegetable matter, such as dead leaves and growing crypto- 

 gamic vegetation. These little creatures can be easily preserved 

 in a mixture of alcohol and glycerine, or pure alcohol, though 

 without the glycerine the colors fade. 



We have entered more fully in this chapter into the details of 

 structure than heretofore, too much so, perhaps, for the patience 

 of our readers. But the study of the Poduras possesses the 

 liveliest interest, since these lowest of all the six-footed insects 

 may have been among the earliest land animals, and hence to 

 them we may look with more or less success for the primitive, 

 ancestral forms of insect life. 



