QiCy 
Tiiysanopteka.- 
-INSECTS.- 
-Limothrips. 
digging long trenches, two or three feet deep, into which 
the Salfones are driven, nolentes volentes. When the 
trenches are half filled with the young insects, the earth 
is shovelled hack on them and they are buried. Myriads 
are driven into rivers and drowned. 
Every fifty years the Chapulin is said to appear in 
myriads, and their devastation lasts from five to seven 
years, when it entirely disappears. There is no doubt 
that, like other insects, these periodical visits are use- 
ful in a moral, and may be in a physical way as well, 
to the inhabitants. The insect is from two and a half 
to four inches long, and specimens have been met with 
five inches in length. 
The Petadda epldppigera is a grasshopper from 
North Australia, of a bright brick colour dotted with 
blue. The thorax is much dilated behind, being pro- 
jected over the base of the wings somewhat like a saddle; 
from this circumstanee its specific name is derived — 
ephippiata, saddled. The species was first obtained on 
the voyage of the Beagle, when engaged on the survey 
of the north coast of Australia. At first sight this 
insect has a strong external resemblance to some of 
the African grasshoppers, but it belongs to quite a 
distinct genus, which may be known by the above 
mentioned character. The insect is nearly two inches 
long, and is “the grasshopper” referred to at p. 481 
of Dr. Leichardt’s “Journey.” 
There is figured, in the great work on the Dutch 
East India Possessions,* a curious insect, the Charoe- 
typus gallinaceus, a native of Sakoembang. It has the 
thorax, or at least the pronotum part of the thorax, 
produced as far as the last dorsal joint ; its posterior 
angle is very sharp. In this subgenus the anterior 
margin of the prosternum does not surround the mouth. 
A genus where that part does not surround the mouth 
is named Hymenoies. 
Fig. 8 of Plate 5 shows the Acrydium hipunctatum 
or Tettix hipunctata, in which the prothorax is greatly 
developed posteriorly. It is a British species. There 
are twenty-six species recorded as British. 
SuB-OEDEE — THYSANOPTERA. 
This order of insects contains a host of minute crea- 
tures, which, both in their perfect and larva state, 
frequent flowers, or live under the bark of trees. They 
are nearly all of very minute size, very few of them 
exceeding a line in length. The figure in the mar- 
gin shows one of these higlily magnified. The largest 
are some Australian species of Idolothrips, one of 
Fig. 151. 
Thrips, greatly magnified. 
which is four lines or more in length. The body is 
elongated and depressed. The following characters 
ai'e those of the order: — The wings are generally four, 
alike, long, narrow, membranous, without reticulations, 
the edges with long cilim; when at rest these wings 
are laid horizontally along the back. The mouth is 
situated on the underside, and has two setiform man- 
dibles, two broad adpressed palpigerous maxillae. The 
tarsi are two-jointed, and vesiculose at the tip,! and 
without claws. The antennae have few joints. De 
Geer noticed that when the Thrips presses the vesicle 
of its feet against the surface on which it walks, it 
expands and appears concave, which led him to imagine 
that it acted like a cupping glass. 
The pupa and propupa, as Mr. Haliday calls the 
two states the insect passes through after leaving its 
larva conditions, are slower in their motions than the 
perfect insects. 
The Thysanoptera are found on various plants, 
some of them being exceedingly injurious, particularly 
in hot-houses. The leaves of vines and other plants 
on which they muster are marked with small decayed 
patches. 
One species {Limothrips cerealium) infests our 
wheat crops, and destroys them at times. The Kev. 
Mr. Kirby described this insect under the name of 
Thrips physapus. It takes up its place between the 
inner valve of the corolla and the grain, and seems to 
fix its beak in tlie bottom of the seed. By extracting 
the moisture it causes the seed to shrivel up, and be- 
come what the farmers call “ pungled.” This species, 
it would appear, also gnaws the stems above the knots, 
and causes the abortion of the ear. In 1805, about a 
third of the wheat crop in Piedmont is said to have 
been destroyed by this insect; and in the same year, 
the same crops sutfered much in this country from a 
similar cause. 
In Tuscany, another species of Thrips proves very 
injurious to the olive-tree. It fixes itself on the under- 
* Verhandelingen over de Naturlijke Geschiedens, &c. — 
Orlhoptera, by W. De Haan and Hagcnbach ; p. 165, PI. 22, 
fig. 5. 
t Diimeril, from this structure, gave these insects the name 
of Physapoda (Zool. Anal. p. 268). Mr. Haliday, who first 
characterized the order, gave it the name Thysanopoda, but 
substituted Dumeril’s name for it in a synopsis of the order 
given in Walker’s Homopterous Insects, in the collection of the 
British Museum, p. 1094. 
