3J:J! J. Wood- Mason — Notes on PLasmidse. [No. 4, 



Hab. Buitenzorg in Java, and Sumatra {$ JDe Haan) ; Singapore 

 ( $ Westwood) ; and Perak, Malay Peninsula, whence I have just obtained 

 for the Indian Museum a specimen of the male agreeing in every respect 

 except size, as to which it is slightly inferior, with the specimen in the Bri- 

 tish Museum from Singapore figured by Westwood ; it was purchased from 

 a collection of insects formed by one of the medical officers attached to the 

 Perak Expedition. 



LONCHODES BEEVIPES. 

 Lonchodes brevipes, G. R. Gray, Syn. Phasm. p. 19, $ 



„ pferodacti/lus, id., op. cit. p. 19, $ . 

 Fhasma (Bacteria) nodosum, De Haan, Orthopt. Orient, p. 133, pi. xi, fig. 3, ^. 



„ Sumatranum, id., op. cit. pi. xiii, fig. 6, $ . 

 Lonchodes brevipes, Westwood, Monograph, of Fhasmidce, p. 36, $ ? . 



„ nodosiis, id., op. cit. p. 37, ^ $ . 



I have carefully examined and measured the typical specimens of Gray's 

 species preserved in the National Collection, but failed to detect the slight- 

 est difference between them and De Haan's species, of which a multitude 

 of specimens of both sexes was obtained some years ago by my native col- 

 lector at Johore* in the Malay Peninsula and on the island of Singapore 

 immediately opposite. The specimens described by De Haan were from 

 Sumatra, those by Gray from the Malabar Coast. I have also a specimen of 

 the female presented to me by my late friend Dr. Stoliczka, which was 

 said by him to have been brought from Java. 



The following are the measurements of two of the typical specimens 



* Similarly, the metallic coloured Mantis, of which my native collector obtained 

 numerous examples at this same place, has proved identical with the species {Metalleu- 

 tica splendidaj described many years ago by Westwood from Malabar. The species, 

 like so many other metallic insects [e. g., notably Chiloloba acuta, of which fiery red with 

 all the fire of the opal, green, and blue specimens, with all connecting shades, can be 

 collected at Sahibganj in a few minutes ; Heterorrhina elegans, and other Cetoniidce,) 

 exhibits the phenomenon of dichroism, the blue {M. violaceaj being structurally per- 

 fectly indistinguishable from those that are green with coppery reflections (M. splendid 

 da) . To place the matter beyond all doubt I submitted specimens of each form for 

 comparison with the type to Professor Westwood, who also was unable to detect any 

 difference between them save that of colour. 



The larvae are all coloured, as to their legs and bodies, Hke the blue form of the 

 imago, thus exhibiting, as appears to me probable, an ancestral phase ; and if this be 

 so, then the dimorphism would in this case, at any rate, be interpretable as the reten- 

 tion, throughout life, of larval, that is, ancestral, characters by certain individuals of 

 both sexes ; and this may be the true nature of dimorphism in insects in general. But 

 we are as far as ever from understanding what profit or advantage it can be to a species 

 to exist under two or more difi"crent forms. 



