252 MR. A. MURRAY’S MONOGRAPH OF THE FAMILY OF NITIDULARLE. 
The ligula and its membranous lobes are of especial interest in this genus. Their 
form, as I made them out, will be seen in Plate XXXII. fig. 9,e. I have only, however, 
had the opportunity of making one dissection of these, and I have figured what I 
thought I saw. I have thought it better to do this, even although I should have been 
mistaken, than to stop inquiry as to this apparently singular structure. It will be seen, 
from the figure, not only that the ligula appears to be broken into two lobes (which 
is doubtless the result of fracture from the pressure of the slides between which I had 
. placed it for examination), but that its membranous lobes or wings appear to be double; 
and they certainly had a double action or motion. Its food and mode of life may in 
some measure account for these peculiarities. I believe it will be found that all insects 
which feed upon the juices of trees or fruits are provided with special organs for lapping 
it up, such as very much bearded maxillary lobes, &c. The insects of this genus feed 
upon a very thick sticky resin or juice of about the consistence of turpentine, called 
* Kruyin" by the Malays in Borneo, which is produced by a species of Dipterocarpus. 
Mr. Wallace never found them but in this gum: if he took the insects out and placed 
them near the juice, they immediately made their way back to it, and burrowed into it 
until they became like flies in amber. He found the greatest difficulty in cleansing them , 
from the gum (indeed, I had noticed that all the specimens which I had seen had gum 
adhering to them, which I accounted for to myself by supposing they had been carelessly 
gummed on paper and not cleansed), and the only medium by which he could get it off 
was oil. The mode of life of this insect being thus peculiar, we need not be surprised if 
we find some modification of the normal structure in its masticatory organs. 
No species has puzzled me more, to assign its true position, than the present. My first 
idea was to place it where I now have; but on dissecting the mouth I found that it had 
apparently only one maxillary lobe—a circumstance which compelled me to seek another 
locale for it; and it was only when, by a more careful study of the maxille, I found 
that their lobes showed indications of being composed of two lobes united together, as 
was the case with the club of the antennz, that I began to suspect that this might be its 
true position after all. Like the Brachypteride, it has no antennal grooves; like most 
of them, the maxillary palpi have the second article largest and the fourth smallest; and 
as in them, one of the sexes has an additional anal segment to the abdomen. The hex- 
agonal thorax has the commencement of a parallel in Brachyleptus tinctus, and the tex- 
ture, punctuation, and pubescence are somewhat of the same character in Brachypterus and 
Calonecrus. When Mr. Pascoe was kind enough to present me with his unique specimen 
of C. rufipes, I eagerly availed myself of its possession to dissect the mouth, in the hope 
that as in it those articles of the antennse which were soldered together in C. Wallacet 
were free, so I might find the maxillary lobes there also separated into two; 1 did not 
find this, however, but merely the same structure as in the other. 
I have, on the whole, thought this its fittest position; but I place it with diffidence, 
and merely provisionally. 
CARPOPHILUS. 
Position and Affinities—Bracuyuzrtus. | CALONECRUS. MysTROPS. 
TRIMENUS. 
