18S2.] J. Wjod Mason — O/e new and Uttle-hiown Mantodea. 29 



of the partially separated tegmina is rubbed ; for, if the tegmina of a 

 limply-articulated spirit-specimen be moved horizontally outwards, so as to 

 be slightly separated from one another, their toothed anterior margin comes 

 quite naturally into relation with these ridges, and, if either of the four 

 posterior legs be then rapidly moved backwards and forwards, a crepitating 

 or rasping sound is given out, which in the living insect, with its wings 

 so disposed as to act as resonators, would, I feel confident, be as loud as 

 that made by many grasshoppers in scraping their toothed femora ficross 

 the sharp projecting nervures of their tegmina. 



While I was engaged in correcting the first proof of this paper 

 Mr. J, G. Furnivall, a gentleman who had lived and travelled for many 

 years in South Africa, informed me that stridulating Mantises very fre- 

 quently came under his notice during his residence in tliat country ; that 

 the sounds emitted by them were as loud as, but more crepitating in 

 character than, the hiss of a large snake ; and that, on account of their 

 possessing these sound- producing powers in so eminent a degree, it was 

 a common practice with native children to bring specimens of them 

 alive as curiosities to the European settlers. The species observed by 

 Mr. Furnivall was in all probability Idolomorpha capensis, Burmeister. 



HiEBODULA (Sphodeomantis) arabica, h. sp. 



Sieroduia trimacula, Wood-Mason, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1878, 5th ser. vol. i, 

 p. 147, {nee Saussure). 



?. Very closely allied to H. (S.) hioculata, Burm., but differing in 

 its much less expanded pronotum (which is scarcely more enlarged ante- 

 riorly than that of H. trimaculaj , in its more pointed and thinner tegmina 

 (which are thin-coriaceous in the marginal field, but membranous and only 

 slightly clouded throughout behind the principal nervure), in its less 

 strongly spined coxse (two or three spines of which are similarly connected 

 with yellowish callosities on the inner face), and in the four-branched dis- 

 coidal vein of its wings. 



Total length 65 ; length of head 7*75 ; breadth of head 9 5 ; length 

 of pronotum 22 3, of which the anterior lobe is 6*5 ; length of tegmina 

 43, breadth 13, of marginal field 4 ; length of wings 37 ; of fore coxa 17, 

 femur 20 ; of intermediate femur 17'5, tibia 17 ; of posterior femur 21, 

 tibia 23-5. 



Hab. Oman, Arabia. Obtained by Colonel Miles. 

 The anterior edge of the tegmina is delicately toothed and the four 

 posterior femora are laterally ridged ; the sides of the anterior lobe of tlie 

 pronotum are peculiarly straightened as if truncate ; and the fore tibiae are 

 armed with 10 teeth on the outside and with 16 or 17 on the inside. 



