THYSANURA 



183 



the nearest living representative of a primitive or ancestral 

 Insect. The creature itself is but little known even to 

 entomologists, although it is one of the commonest of Insects 

 over a large part of Europe. It is numerous in the gardens 

 and fields about London and Cambridge, and abounds in damp 

 decaying wood in the New Forest ; if there be only one 

 species, it must possess an extraordinary capacity for adapting 

 itself to extremes of climate, as we have found it at midsummer 

 near the shores of the Mediterranean in company with the sub- 

 tropical white ants, and within a day or 

 two of the same time noticed it to be 

 abundant on the actual summit of Mount 

 Canigou, one of the higher Pyrenees, 

 where the conditions were almost arctic, 

 and it was nearly the only Insect to be 

 found. The species is said to exist also 

 in North America and in East India. It 

 is a fragile, soft Insect of white colour, 

 bending itself freely to either side like a 

 Myriapod ; the legs are rather long, the 

 antennae are long and delicate, and the 

 two processes, or cerci, at the other ex- 

 tremity of the body are remarkably similar 

 to antennae. It has no eyes and shuns 

 the light, disappearing very quickly in the 

 earth after it has been exposed. If placed 

 in a glass tube it usually dies speedily, 

 and is so extremely delicate that it is 

 difficidt to pick it up even with a camel's 

 hair brush without breaking it ; so that 

 we may fear it to be almost hopeless to 



get enough specimens from different parts p^^, 'i\.-Campodm staphy- 

 of the world to learn what differences 

 may exist amongst the individuals of this 

 so-called primitive Insect. Meiuert, a very able entomologist, 

 considers that there is really more than one species of Campodea 

 Campodeidae as a family may be briefly defined as Thysanura 

 with the trophi buried in the head and with the body terminated 

 by antenna-like processes. We shall consider some of the ana- 

 tomical peculiarities of this interesting Insect after we have 



Units. (After Lubbock, 

 xl5.) 



