LEFEUVRE ON MANTIS. 347 



perfectly with the membrane of the wing, &c. (Ex. Erem. 

 Audouin, Cerisy, fyc.) 



I have not remarked, as in the other Mantidw, in the small 

 number of male Eremiaphilw I have examined, that their alary 

 organs were more ample than those of the female ; in both 

 sexes they appear proportioned to the size of the specimen, and 

 almost exactly alike, except in the more or less extended size 

 of certain species. 



The males have the abdomen more slender, and their elytra 

 exceed it in dimensions, whilst in the females it protrudes far 

 beyond the elytra, and is, indeed, often exceedingly bulky. 



Notwithstanding the reluctance I feel to establish a new 

 species, from knowledge only of the larva and pupa, and to 

 furnish at best a defective description, since it must necessarily 

 be as imperfect as the insect from which it is taken ; yet I 

 cannot think it right to omit those species which in their two 

 states have no analogy to their neighbours. The desire to render 

 this essay as complete as possible prompts me to this course. 



I have met with few of the distinctive characters of the 

 Eremiaphilw amongst them in the forms of the head or pro- 

 thorax. In fact, it would seem that these distinctions, if care- 

 fully examined, are subject to variation : in the first place 

 naturally, and afterwards from the mode of preservation ; for 

 in many specimens the imperfect state of preservation destroys 

 the shape, and more particularly that of the abdomen. 



It is particularly in the figure and colour of the elytra and 

 wings that we find the principal differences by which these 

 insects are distinguished from each other ; and these I shall 

 employ, on account of the greater constancy which I find in 

 these organs. 



Whatever I may say about the prevailing colours in these 

 descriptions must only be considered of secondary importance, 

 as they are more or less altered in death. Although they take, 

 at least in the pupa state, the tint of the soil they inhabit, their 

 colour in the perfect state seldom varies from brown or dingy 

 yellow, which are mostly the tints of the desert parts of Egypt 

 and Syria. 



In return for the sombre hue of their external covering, 

 their wings and elytra are mostly ornamented beneath with a 

 metallic blue or green, which vies in brilliancy with the most 

 gaudy of the Buprestidce or Cetonia?. 



