A NEW SPECIES OF PHASMID^. 



51 



which was published in the * Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History,' in the year 1866 (Ser. 3, vol. xviii. pp. 265-268). That 

 paper is certainly well worth reading in full. But its chief 

 point of interest for the moment is that it brings us to the fount 

 and origin of that remarkable little story about Prisopus which 

 has been repeated, as we have seen, by other writers. 



The real author of the story, however, remains so far 

 anonymous that he is only known to us as a " person," later 

 on dignified by the title of " observer," in whose veracity Mr. 

 Alexander Fry, to whom he first related the story, had the 

 fullest confidence. 



The story had reference only to one species of Prisopus — P. 

 flabelliformis, but, as Murray very truly remarks : — " All the 

 species are characterized by the same peculiarities of structure, 

 and the habits of one will doubtless be the habits of all. 



" According to this observer, then, the insect was obtained 

 by him in the mountains of Brazil ; and its habits were to spend 

 the whole of the day under water, in a stream or rivulet, fixed 

 firmly to a stone in the rapid part of the stream, but on the 

 approach of dusk to sally forth into the night air." 



Murray believed this story ; he was not so much struck by 

 its great improbability, as by the lack of perception on the part 

 of other distinguished entomologists, who had not discovered in 

 the structure of the genus the most admirable and most perfect 

 adaptation for the very purpose explained by the "person." 

 And the rest of his paper is almost wholly taken up with a very 

 detailed description of the insect, in which he proceeds to show 

 how every single detail of its structure fitted in with the story 

 told about its aquatic habits. 



The details which he has given of the structure are, with one 

 exception, and apart from the interpretation he placed upon 

 them, very accurate, and may be quoted here in extenso, since 

 they apply almost equally as well to the species discovered by 

 Mr. Fisher. The one exception refers to his account of the 

 tegmina or wing-covers. These structures do not reach to the 

 end of the body, nor do they completely cover over the under 

 wings, in any known species of the genus. So that if his 

 description is correct, the species described could not have been 

 flabelliformis. But it looks to me as if Murray, in his haste to 

 see "waterproof" structures everywhere, mistook for a con- 

 tinuation of the wing-covers that considerable part of the under 

 wings which projects beyond them, and which is usually coloured 

 so exactly like them in resemblance to bark. It is to be noticed, 

 too, in his description which follows that not a word is said 

 about the coloration of the insect : — 



" The whole underside, even the head, is hollowed out like 

 the half of a reed. The surface of that side is flexible, smooth, 

 and highly polished. The margins are thinned off, and the 



E 2 



