SPRING TAILS. 407 



This is the largest of the Smynthuri, about i-ioth of an inch in 

 length. It is common about London, and no doubt elsewhere, 

 on pieces of wood and bark in damp situations. It feeds prin- 

 cipally on the spores and first shoots of fungi, and Sir J. Lubbock 

 mentions that many specimens are infested by a small mite which 

 adheres to its under side in considerable numbers. 



S:SIYNTHURUS VIRIDIS {Liiin.), 



Green*eyes on a black patch; common. 



Lubbock describes eight species of Smynthuri as found in 

 England, and notices several others from the Continent and 

 foreign parts. In his " Farm Insects," Curtis describes a species 

 which he calls Smynthurus Solani as possibly or probably inju- 

 rious to the potato crop by browsing on the parenchyma of its 

 green leaves, on which it may be found in quantity running and 

 skipping about their under side and often falling down on its 

 back. He says it is not bigger than a small grain of sand, and 

 either entirely of a deep ochreous colour with black eyes, or as 

 black as soot with ochreous horns. He gives a figure of it, but 

 neither his figure nor his description is sufficiently detailed to 

 allow of its accurate determination, and it is not impossible that 

 he may have confounded two species. If so, his species would 

 most probably be S. luteus and S. niger, \iz. : — 



Smynthurus luteus {Ltibb.). 



Yellow ; eyes on a black patch ; apical part of antennas violet. 



Sir John Lubbock gives the following account of the courtship 

 of this species, the only one whose amours have been observed : — • 

 " It is very amusing to see these little creatures coquetting to- 

 gether. The male, which is much smaller than the female, runs 

 round her, and they butt one another standing face to face, and 

 moving backwards and forwards like two playful lambs. Then 

 the female pretends to run away and the male runs after her with 



