312 THE INSECT WORLD. 



and in South America the Ommexeca, which walks rather than springs. 

 On the other hand, the Tetrix springs very well. A remarkable 

 feature about them is their thorax, which is prolonged into a point, 

 and covers the whole body. They are small insects of gay and 

 brilliant colours, and generally remain on the leaves of low plants, 

 and escape easily from the hand that tries to catch them. The 

 Tetrix s-iibulata, of a brownish colour, is common during spring, in 

 the environs of Paris, in the woods, and in dry and arid fields. The 

 Pneumorce are very strange insects. The males have a very promi- 

 nent abdomen, which resembles a bladder filled with air ; and their 

 wings are very much developed. The females have the abdomen of 

 the ordinary shape ; their wings are very short, or even quite rudi- 

 mentary. The former produce a sharp stridulation, by rubbing their 

 hind-legs against a row of small tubercles, which are to be seen on 

 each side of the abdomen. The sound is rendered still more pene- 

 trating by the vesiculous or bladder-like abdomen, the skin of which 

 is stretched as tight as a drum. The Pneumorce inhabit the South of 

 Africa, as also do the Truxales, a few varieties of which, however, 

 are to be met with in Spain, Sicily, and the South of France. 



We will pass in silence over a great number of other less interesting 

 species of Orthoptera. Those which we have described suffice to 

 justify us in what we said above, namely, that this order contains 

 insects of the strangest and most anomalous forms. 



