NOTES FROM THE SARAWAK MUSEUM. 69 



Notes from the Sarawak Museum. 



By R. Shelford. 



OiV the Occurrence of the Mimetic Locustid Comlglodera 

 tricondyloides (WEST.) IN BOKSEO. 



This locustid which most closely mimics a large blue tiger- 

 beetle, Tricondyla sp., was originally discovered in Java and was 

 described by Westwood in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, 

 Vol. xviii, p. 409. The insect had so entirely deceived this re- 

 nowned entomologist that it had been placed in the Hope collec- 

 tion of tiger-beetles fCicindelidce), the mistake not being dis- 

 covered for some time ; subsequently another example was taken, 

 in Java again, and was actually given the MS. name of Tricon- 

 dyla rufipes by Duponchal. This specimen is also in the Hope 

 collection, University Museum, Oxford. In Feb. 1900, my Dyak 

 collectors brought in a locust which I immediately suspected" to 

 be the same species as that occuring in Java, and Dr. E. B. Poul- 

 ton, F.E.8.. to whom I have sent the specimen, informs me that 

 if not the same species it is very closely allied ; it is somewhat 

 larger than the type. As the insect is undoubtedly very rare 

 the following brief description of the colouration and external 

 characters of a newly-killed example may be of some interest. 

 The general colour is a dark blue of a shade identical with that of 

 the Trico)idifla : all the femora are bright red, the tibiae and tarsi 

 brown, again as in the model ; the antenna 1 are long (two and 

 one-half to three times the length of the body), and of an ex- 

 treme tenuity and fragility : the head is extremely Cicindelid 

 in form, with its prominent eyes and large mouth parts ; the 

 pronotum is elongate, somewhat constricted anteriorly and about 

 its middle, the whole corresponding in length and shape to the 

 prothorax and narrowed anterior third of the elytra of the tiger- 

 beetle ; the wing-rudiments are closely adpresed to the body and 

 so do not break its smooth outline ; the abdomen is slightly 

 swollen ; in the tiger-beetle the prothorax is smooth, the elytra 



