1876.] J. Wood- Mason — Neio PTiasmideous Insect from the Anclamans. D'S 



district. It was also a fact that in tliat district the margin o£ cultivation 

 lay nearer the sea than either in the 2i-Parganahs or in Jessore. Starting 

 from a point not many miles south of Calcutta, this margin extended almost 

 in a straight line to within a few miles of the sea in the Baqirganj 

 district. "Wherever there was a large river, cultivation would be found to 

 encroach somewhat south of the line, but as a general rule its direction was 

 as stated. When reporting on the census of 1872, Mr. Beveeley said, he 

 had made special enquiries with reference to this subject, but he had 

 failed to ascertain that in the districts of the 24-Parganahs and Jessore there 

 had been any great increase of cultivation within recent years. At the 

 same time if it could be shown (as indeed the nimierous old river-beds found 

 in the Hugli, Nadia and Jessore districts seemed to indicate) that at 

 some former time the main channel of the Ganges flowed thi'ough the Western 

 Sundarbans, it was not impossible that the margin of cultivation, and conse- 

 quently of j)opulation, may have lain further to the south in those parts than 

 at present. Were we to suppose that by some change in the river-system, 

 the Megna were now to lose half its volume of water, there could be no doubt 

 that the salt water tides wotdd gain a corresponding influence, and a certain 

 quantity of land in the neighbotirhood would again be thrown out of cultiva- 

 tion and be depopulated. 



3. — Descrij^tion of a new Phasmideous Insect from the Andamans. — 

 By J. Wood-Masok, Esq. 



The author describes, under the name of L. verrucifer, the two sexes of 

 an insect belonging to the same little group as Loncliodes amcmrops, nodosus, 

 hrevipes, tcniformis, Craioangensis, hifoliatus, &e., all species, like it, with 

 the first tarsal joint of the fore legs elevated into a sharp foliaceous crest ; 

 and states that loncliodes nematodes, an insect with short filiform antennae 

 and long and simj^le first tarsal joint to fore legs, cannot be the male of L. 

 Crawangensis, an insect with long setaceous antennae and foliaceous first 

 tarsal joints, but that it must be the male of L. cunicularis, or of some 

 closely allied form. 



This section of the genus Loncliodes is represented in India by one 

 species only, the L. hrevipes, which is said to be a native of the Malabar 

 coast, the fauna of which was largely comj)osed of representative Malayan 

 forms. 



Mr. W. T. Blaiyfokd called attention to the large field for explora- 

 tion still offered by the hills of Southern India and the forests near the 

 Malabar coast. The wonderful collections of reptiles and land mollusks 

 made l)y Colonel Beddome served to shew how much in all probability 

 remained to be learned in other branches of Zoology. 



