628 MR. J. WOOD-MASON ON THE FAMILY EMBIID.E. [DeC. 18, 



The layers are thicker on the left because that side leads towards 

 the thicker epithelium of the papillate surface. 

 Fis;. XXXII. xl-t-5. Transverse vertical section through four of the furrows of 

 the lateral organ of Phalangista vidfnna. The drawing is in outline 

 only, and the bulbs are not indicated. The irregular directioa of the 

 trenches makes it impossible to obtain a true transverse section of them 

 all, and therefore the epithelium in places appears thicker than it 

 really is (being cut obliquely"). Owing to the same cause two or three 

 rows of bulbs are sometimes seen in one thickness of epithelium, s. e. 

 Supei'ficial epithelium with papillary processes below, c/. d. Gusta- 

 tory depressions with smooth epithelium, gld. Serous glands with 

 their ducts {gld. d.) opening mto the bottom of the furrows. 



2. A Contribntion to our Knowledge of the Embnd(B, a Family 

 of Orthopterous In.sects. By J. Wood-Mason, Deputy 

 Superintendent, Indian Museum, Calcutta. 



[Eeceived November 28, 1883.] 



(Plate LVI.) 



1. Introduction, p. 628. 



2. Discovery of Larvffi apparently living in Society, p. 629. 



3. Discovery of the Wingless Female, p. 630. 



4. Description of the Female Characters, p. 630. 



5. Capture of Winged ]\Iales, p. 631. 



6. Description of the Male Characters, p. 631. 



7. On the Wings of Evihia {Oligofoma) saundersii, p. 632. 



8. Affinities of the Group, p. 634. 



Introduction. — "While I was at home on furlough in 187'-79, 

 Mr. R. M'Lachlan, F.R.S., drew my attention to this imperfectly 

 known little group of insects, and begged me to attempt, on my 

 return to India, to supply some of the deficiencies in our knowledge 

 regarding it. I promised to do what I could in the matter ; and, 

 beYore leaving England, prepared myself for my task by examining 

 the different collections of dried specimens and by reading up the 

 hterature of the subject; in particular Mr. M'Lachlan's ' then recently 

 published paper, containing (1) a resume, of the few and scattered 

 items of additional information that had been placed on record by 

 various naturalists during the forty years that had elapsed since the 

 appearance of Westwood's" memoir in the year 1837; (2) descriptions 

 of four new species ; and (3) the record of the discovery, in an orchid- 

 house near London, of the so-called nymph-stage of a species im- 

 ported into England with plants from India — a valuable observation, 

 which proves that in the Embiidae we have to do with a group of 

 insects whose members, like the true Orthoptera, the Earwigs, and 

 the White Ants, and hke the Psocidse, the Physopoda, and the 

 Rhynchota, attain to the adult condition without undergoing any 

 metamorphosis in the entomological sense of the term. 



From the examination of specimens and the perusal of the literature 

 I arrived at the conclusion that all the specimens of all the species 



^ Journal Linn. Soc. Lond., Zoology, vol. xiii. pp. 373-384, pi. xsi. 

 * Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond , vol. xxii. pp. 369-375, pi. xi. 



