THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 135 



Walhalla. Conspicuous amongst these were several kinds of 

 large cockroaches, one of which lays a very remarkable cocoon — 

 sausage-shaped, and provided with a curious toothed crest, just 

 like a saw, running along its length. Spiders and ants were also 

 there in swarms; but all these, and more also, I must pass over, 

 and hasten on to describe some other very remarkable forms 

 which I think deserve special attention. 



The first of these were found under stones, and one of them is 

 represented in the first of the drawings which I have the pleasure 

 of exhibiting this evening. Imagine a small oval creature, some- 

 where about a quarter of an inch in length; flat on the lower 

 surface, and well rounded on the upper; white all over, except for 

 a number of regularly-arranged brown warts on the back. The 

 warts are arranged with great regularity as follows : — There is, first 

 of all, one at each extremity of the body, just above the margin of 

 the dorsal surface, and then between these two, and placed at about 

 equal distances, come seven transverse rows, each composed of 

 four warts — or I might with equal correctness say four longitu- 

 dinal rows, each composed of seven warts. At one end of the 

 body the two central warts of the transverse row of four are fused 

 together in the middle line so as to form an elongated proboscis- 

 like organ, which projects so as to hide the single terminal wart 

 when the animal is viewed from above. 



Round the margin of the body, at the junction of the dorsal and 

 ventral surfaces, there is a very delicate narrow fringe. Micro- 

 scopical examination shows that this fringe is composed of 

 innumerable minute flattened branching hairs, placed so close 

 together as to form a continuous band, and probably serving their 

 owner as a m.eans of slight attachment to the surface on which it 

 lies, for the animal is excessively sluggish, and when touched only 

 just shrinks a little. The entire body is invested by a horny or 

 chitinous cuticle; this is more strongly developed on the dorsal than 

 on the ventral surface, and is especially thick in the position of 

 the warts, which seem, indeed, to be composed entirely of cuticular 

 substance. On the ventral surface the cuticle forms innumerable 

 short, pointed, microscopical hairs, and it also gives rise to the 

 branching marginal hairs forming the fringe already described. On 

 the dorsal surface, between the warts, the outermost layer of the 

 chitinous cuticle exhibits under the microscope a very peculiar and 

 beautiful sculpturing — consisting of a number of rounded knobs 

 placed at some little distance from one another, with a great 

 number of much smaller, more or less star-shaped, knobs filling up 

 the gaps between them. 



I was at first greatly puzzled with these little creatures, and what 

 seemed the most possible suggestion as to their nature which 

 occurred to me was that they might be some kind of slug (this was 

 before I had made any microscopical examination). Subsequently, 



