259 



INSECTA. 



PART I— COLLEMBOLA. 

 BY GEORGE H. CARPENTER, D.Sc, M.R.I.A.. 



Professor of Zoology in the Boyal College of Science, Dublin. 

 WITH ONE PLATE. 



Among the collections made during Capt. E. F. Scott's first (" Discovery ") expedition 

 to the Antarctic were some specimens of moss {Bryuvi algens, Cardot), from Granite 

 Harbour, South Victoria Land, in 77° S. lat. and 162° 30' E. long., containing 

 fragments of a small dark-blue spriugtail clearly referable to the Poduridae, and 

 described (Carpenter, 1908) as a new genus and species — Gomphiocephalus hodgsoni. 

 The naturalists of the " Terra Nova," in their western journey during the summer 

 of 1911-12, spent a month in the geological study of the Granite Harbour district, 

 and Mr. Griffith Taylor, on the night of November 30, found a number of Gomphio- 

 cephalus on the surface of a small pool at Cape Geology, a point on the southern 

 shore of Granite Harbour, where the party had established its headquarters. Taylor's 

 account of his discovery (1914, pp. 243-4) may be quoted, as it gives some interesting 

 information on the habits of this most southerly of all the free-living insects yet 

 known to us. 



"At 10 P.M. I made a great discovery. I saw something black floating in a 

 little pool, and closer inspection revealed a cluster of minute insects. . . . Later, 

 Debenham found there were lots under many of the pebbles. Here they clustered 

 in a film of ice. As one turned a pebble to the sun they would thaw out and crawl 

 around for exercise. I got a brush out of the medical chest and spread a sheet of 

 paper with seccotine, then brushed them off carefully on to the paper and so embalmed 

 several thousands. We also got a few lively little beggars about one-quarter the 

 size of the big blue ones. The latter were nearly one millimetre long." 



On receiving these specimens from Mr. Taylor, Mr. E. W. Nelson, one of the 

 biologists of the expedition, transferred them into 70 per cent, alcohol, with the result 

 that many are in quite good condition for study, though the "seccotine treatment" 

 has tended to obscure delicate features of the cuticle and to remove bristles. In a letter 

 to Dr. C. J. Gahan, Keeper of Entomology in the British Museum (who has most 

 kindly entrusted me with these insects for description), Mr. Nelson refers to Taylor's 

 note quoted above, suggesting the presence of a second species. " I could not find 



