SPRING TAILS. 



403 



CASE of species of Collembola, being that of a scale of Lepidocyrtus 

 curvicollis, which, no doubt, deviates from the others, but still 



Scale of Lepidocyrtus curvicollis, much magnified, and portion of it still more enlarged. 



bears the same cachet. We therefore propose to retain the name 

 Thysanura for the whole order, and to take Sir John's name Col- 

 lembola for the first section, and leave the other under its old 

 name of Lepismidse. 



Tribe COLLEMBOLA. 

 Horticulturists, at least those who possess "frames," still more 

 those who have cucumber-frames or hot-beds, are pretty familiar 

 with the insects of this family. If we place a cloth over the 

 glass, we shall probably find next morning, on removing it, that 

 the place where it lay is swarming with a quantity of minute soft 

 delicate insects, some of which will take to their heels and endea- 

 vour to escape by running, and others will spring upwards with 

 considerable force, taking bounds which, were we able to take 

 them proportionately high, would carry us over our highest 

 steeples. These surprising leaps are not made like those of the 

 flea and most other jumping insects, by means of powerful muscles 

 placed in very thick thighs, but by means of a sub-abdominal 

 forked organ, which acts as a spring very much in the same way 

 that the toy familiar to our boyhood called a jumping-frog does. 

 These are Collembola. But it is inside the frames that we see tjiem 

 in greatest numbers ; they often swarm there as tliick as powder, 



