FAM. BLATT I ]).!•; 3 



of the wing in size, it now doubles by a transverse hinge over the rest of the wing and is also folded in 

 two along a longitudinal crease; it is not veined. In the genus Diploplera the large apical area is veined 

 in a complex manner, the venation however being quite separate from that of the basal part of the wing. 



The legs are very similar to one another, no one pair being modified for leaping or for raptorial 

 purposes; amongst the Panesthinae the}' are well adapted for the fossorial habits of this sub-family. The 

 coxae are large and flattened and serve as shields to the ventral surface of the thorax. The trochanters 

 are moderate in size. The femora are generally compressed, with the upper border rounded, the lower 

 border with two keels ; the presence or absence of spines on these keels is a character of great taxonomic 

 importance. The tibia? are heavily armed with spines. The tarsi are five-jointed, the last joint bearing 

 two claws, between which may or may not be present a lobe or arolium ; the under-surface of the other 

 joints is generally furnished with pads or pulvilli and sometimes with spines; the first joint is the longest 

 .and is termed by most authors the metatarsus. 



The abdomen is large and consists of ten segments, not all of which however are visible, 

 since some of the apical segments are retracted and inflexed; in each segment a dorsal plate or 

 tergum and a ventral plate or sternum is to be distinguished. The first dorsal plate is very reduced 

 in size and is, as a rule, more or less fused with the metanotum; the first ventral plate ma} - be still 

 more rudimentary. In the male cockroach ten dorsal plates are usually visible, but sometimes only 

 nine; in the female the eighth and ninth terga are concealed beneath the seventh tergum. The 

 tenth dorsal plate is known as the lamina supra-analis, it is different in shape in the two sexes. 

 Nine ventral plates in the male and seven in the female, are visible, the last of the series (ninth in 

 the male, seventh in the female) is termed the lamina subgenitalis and bears in the male a pair of 

 unjointed styles; these however may be absent (Ectobia, Panesthia etc.), or only one may be present, a 

 notch in the subgenital lamina replacing the absent one (Phyllodromia, Temnopteryx, etc.). In the females 

 of the sub-family Periplanetinae the hinder part of the seventh ventral plate is divided and modified to form 

 a valvular apparatus, but in all the other sub-families the terminal ventral plate is a simple, semi-orbicular 

 structure. The eighth, ninth and tenth sterna in the female can only be demonstrated by dissection. 

 The tenth segment bears a pair of jointed cerci which may be very long or reduced to a single joint (Panes- 

 thia). In some species of the sub-families Ectobinae and Phyllodrominse, e. g. Ectobia lapponica, Hololampra 

 mavginata, Phyllodromia incisa etc., certain glands which appear to be confined to the male sex open to 

 the exterior on the dorsal surface of the abdomen near its apex; the opening is situated as a rule 

 between two terga, generally the seventh and eighth, and these terga are more or less modified. The 

 function of the glands is quite obscure and the term « repugnatorial glands » applied to them by most 

 authors seems singularly inappropriate. Cosmozosttria ferruginea, Walk, is said to extrude two bright 

 orange-coloured vesicles from the extremity of the abdomen when irritated, and to emit a most 

 disgusting odour. There are ten pairs of spiracles, two of which are thoracic, eight abdominal; the 

 thoracic spiracles are situated between the bases of the legs, they are different in structure to the 

 abdominal spiracles and may possibly be expiratory in their action, whilst the abdominal spiracles mav 

 be inspiratory. In some genera (Epilampra, Rhicnoda etc.) the terminal spiracles lie at the base of short 

 spiracular tubes situated at the posterior angles of the ninth abdominal segment. 



Reproduction. — The eggs are laid in a chitinous capsule or ootheca formed inside the body 

 ot the mother, who frequently carries it about for some days, protruding' from the end of her abdomen, 

 before she deposits it. A few species (Molvtria maculata, Epilampra biirmeisteri, Panchlora viridis, Panesthia 

 javanica etc.) are viviparous. The larvae are not very dissimilar from the adult, but are of course 

 apterous; the larvae of winged species can be distinguished by the produced posterior angles ot the 

 mesonotum and metanotum, but it is sometimes no easy matter to determine whether an example ot an 

 apterous form is immature or adult and no certain diagnostic characters can be offered. 



