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RECORDS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF ORTHOPTERA FROM S. W. ASIA 
BY 
B. P. UvAROV, F.E.S. 
{With 2 text figures.) 
Our knowledge of the Orthopteran fauna of the vast deserts of S. W. Asia 
(Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, N. W. ludia) is, so far, 
extremely fragmentary, this particular group of insects not being usually favoured 
by collectors. At the same time, each lot of Orthoptera brought home from 
there, however small and accidently collected it may be, gives the strongest 
proof of the great richness and originality of that fauna. Endeavouring to 
collect as full records of species, inhabiting the Asiatic deserts, and of their 
geographical distribution, as it is possible, I have recently worked out all the 
odd specimens from Arabia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Persia and Syria in the 
British and Paris Museum collections ; a small collection sent by the Bombay 
Natural History Society, containing the specimens taken by Lt.-Col. J. E. B. 
Hotson in Baluchistan, Capt. G. C. Shortridge, Lt.-Col. F. P. Connor and Lt.- 
Col. H. D. Peile in Mesopotamia, and by Mr. Peter Paschen in Persia (the 
latter lot received by the Society through Colonel P. Gough) has also been 
identified by me and several new forms described in the present paper. The total 
number of specimens studied in preparing this paper scarcely exceeds two 
hundred and the proportion of new species and even genera is simply asto- 
nishing. I hope that this fact will encourage all entomologists, who have the 
opportunity of collecting in those countries to pay more attention to a class 
of insects usually ignored and regarded as “ uninteresting” viz.-. — Grasshoppers, 
Katydids, Crickets and other members of the order Orthoptera ; the writer will 
be very pleased to examine and work out all oollections of Orthoptera from the 
Desert regions in Asia, however small and casually made they may be.* The 
types of new forms, described in this paper, are in the British Museum. 
Mantidce. 
1. Eremiaphila l-evifrons, sp. n. 
5 ; Head as broad, as pronotum ; facial clypeus distinctly convex, without 
any trace of upper carina, smooth, sparsely impresso-punctate ; ocellar area 
scarcely concave ; transverse furrow deUmitating this area from vertex feebly 
developed ; vertex smooth, with lateral furrows distinct, but shallow, while 
the intermediate furrows are scarcely developed. Pronotum as broad anteriorly 
as it is long ; distinctly narrowed posteriorly ; fore margin convex in the middle, 
bisinuate laterally ; lateral margins distinctly convex ; hind margin convex ; 
fore and hind angles a little more than 90°, acute ; upper surface smooth with a 
transverse oval gibbosity at the fore margin and two smaller gibbosities pos- 
teriorly. Elytra distinctly coriaceous, with raised veins, longer than broad 
widely rounded anteriorly and at the apex, with hind margin almost straight, 
slightly excavate beyond the middle. Wings broader than long, with hind 
angle acute, rounded apically. Fore femora and tibiie armed with four 
spines outwardly. 
General colouration clay yellow. Head and underside whitish. Elytra 
beneath with a subapical obhque transverse blue-black band, not reaching the 
fore margin, and with a not sharply defined dark border ; both the band and the 
* Collections may be sent directly to the author (British Museum [Natura 
History] Cromwell Road, London, S.W.7.) or through the Bombay Natural Historv 
Society. If any particulars as to the best methods of collecting and preservation 
are wanted the author will be glad to answer enquiries 
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