30 Proceedings of the 



handling was found to be so much the reverse of beneficial to 

 the animal, that the above restriction on its days of receiving 

 company was found indispensable. 



The public owe the gratification of seeing this curious insect 

 in its living state, to the amiable and accomplished wife of 

 Major Blackwood, of the H.E.I. C.S., a name better known in 

 Edinburgh in connection with ". Maga." 



It was she who, having been struck and delighted with what 

 she saw of its economy in its native country, made successive 

 attempts to introduce it alive into Britain, the third of which 

 attempts was finally successful, in the case of the subject of 

 the present memoir, a memoir which it has been thought 

 might be interesting, as these insects have not only never 

 before been seen alive in this country, but have never been 

 bred, nor had their transformations watched by any naturalist. 

 The genus has been long known through a species named by 

 Latreille and succeeding naturalists, Phyllium siccifolium ; 

 but the species properly entitled to this name, is still uncer- 

 tain, it having been at first supposed, that there was only 

 one species, and every specimen of a Phyllium having been re- 

 ferred to it. This confusion has been somewhat cleared up by 

 Mr George R. Gray, who, availing himself of the rich collection 

 in the British Museum, published a Monograph of the genus, 

 in. the first volume of the Zoologist, in which he described 

 thirteen species, nine of which were new. The genus seems 

 peculiar to the Eastern world ; three of the thirteen having 

 come from the Philippine Islands, three from the East Indies 

 and Ceylon, one from Java, one from Mauritius, and one from 

 the Seychelle Islands. The locality of the remaining four species, 

 (among which is the old Ph. siccifolium) is unknown. The 

 species with which we have to do, was described by Gray, under 

 the name of Ph. Scythe, hut without giving a figure of it, a want 

 which we have endeavoured to supply. It comes from Silhet, 

 and the mountainous district of India adjoining Assam. Speci- 

 mens of the female not unfrequently occur in the cases of in- 

 sects sent from thence, but the male comes much more rarely. 

 Mrs Blackwood found both males and females, as well as the 

 young insect in all stages, plentiful in the valleys below Cherra- 

 poonjie in the Kasiah Hills, which form part of the southern 



