On a New Species of Platymerus. 311 



well known, and its habits seem to be very well known to the 

 natives, whom it attacks in clonals when going np the rivers 

 in their boats; this specimen has formidable jaws, is of a 

 pale or light brown colour, with three longitudinal bands of 

 darker brown, along the upper part of the thorax ; abdomen 

 yellowish brown, with narrow transverse bands of black ; 

 wings pale brown. 



" Of the Hemiptera and the Family Reduviidce there is a 

 large species of Platymerus, much larger than the P. bigut- 

 tatus (Linn, sp.) 



" It has two red spots on the base of the hem ely tree, which 

 have a few small spines. The legs have also larger pale 

 rings on them." 



" A specimen of the Platymerus biguttatus, with its 

 powerful curved proboscis, inflicted a severe wound on the 

 arm of the Eev Mr Morgan at Sierra Leone, whose arm 

 swelled up in an hour or two, in consequence, to nearly 

 twice its size. 



" Lepidoptera Fam. Bombycid^e. — The case of an Oiketi- 

 cus is in the collection, that curious group of the family, 

 the female of which is apterous, and constantly lives in a 

 case or house. Only some five species are described of the 

 singular genus, and they occur principally in the West 

 Indies. He hoped, in some subsequent collection, the 

 winged male of it would be found." 



Dr Smith said he had received this Acridoxena, along with 

 the other insects, from Mr Archibald Hewan, the surgeon to 

 the U. P. Mission at Old Calabar. This specimen was the 

 only one he had seen. The antennae, which were unfor- 

 tunately now broken off, were very long and slender, longer, 

 he believed, than the whole body of the insect ; and as 

 Mr White had refrained from naming the species he had so 

 well described, he would, in compliment to Mr Hewan, who 

 had been so zealous in collecting and sending home various 

 interesting objects of natural history, designate this very 

 curious insect the 



Acridoxena Hewaniana, n. s. 



