160 Prof. J. Wood-Mason on the Genus Choeradodis. 



XX. — Synopsis of the Species of Choeradodis, a remark- 

 able Genus of Mantodea common to India and Tropical 

 America. By J. Wood-Mason, Officiating Superinten- 

 dent Indian Museum, and Professor of Comparative 

 Anatomy, Medical College, Calcutta*. 



The paper, of which the following is an abstract, will be 

 published in full as soon as the illustrations (which have been 

 drawn on the wood under my supervision and sent to London 

 to be cut) are returned to this country. 



The remarkable distribution of this genus of Mantodea is 

 exactly paralleled by that of another genus of Orthoptera, 

 namely Mastax, species of which, from the southern slopes of 

 the Peruvian Andes, have recently been described by Dr. S. 

 H. Scudder. 



The nearest allies of Choeradodis are the Australian Ortho- 

 deras, which its young " larvae " resemble in the form of the 

 pronotum. 



Genus Choeradodis, Serville. 



A. Fore femora without a black blotch on the 

 inner side. 



1. Choeradodis strumaria. 



Chceradodis strumaria, Madame Merian, Ins. de Surinam, 1726, tab. 27, 

 2 et nymplia ; Roesel von Rosenhof, Der nionatlich-herausgegebenen 

 Insecten-Belustigung, 2ter Theil, 1749, Locust, tab. iii. fig. 1 et 2, 

 5 et nynipha (copied from Marian). 



Mantis strumaria, Linn, Syst. Nat. Ins. t. i. pt. ii. 1767, p. 691. no. 

 13, $ ; Fabr. Ent. Syst. ii. 1793, p. 18. no. 21. 



? Mantis cancellata, Fabr. loc. cit. 23 : Stoll, Spectres et Mantes, pi. xi. 

 fig. 42, $ ; Lichtenstein, Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. vol. vi. p. 25. 



Choeradodis cancellata, Serville, Hist. nat. des Orthopt. 1839, p. 206, 2 • 



Craurusa cancellata, Burmeister, Handb. d. Entom. 1839, Band ii. 

 p. 542 (Syn. Serv. et Stoll, fig. 75, exclus.). 



Choeradodis cancellata, Saussure, Mant. Americ. p. 19, c? $ . 



Hab. Cayenne ($, Serville) , Surinam (?, Merian , Stoll; 

 $ ? , Saussure). 



B. Fore femora with a black blotch on the 

 inner side. 



(a) The blotch on the lower half of the joint (American). 



In the females of the following two species, the posterior 

 angles of the pronotal expansions are broadly rounded, and 

 are not produced backwards beyond the level of the hinder 

 eud of the primitive pronotum. 



* Communicated by the Author, having been read before the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal on June 2, 1880. 



