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Show 628 MR. J. W O O D - M A S O N O N T H E FAMILY EMBIID^. [Dec. 18, The layers are thicker on the left because that side leads towards the thicker epithelium of the papillate surface. Fie. xxxii. x 14*5. Transverse vertical section through four of the furrows of the lateral organ of Phalangista vulpina. The drawing is in outline only, and the bulbs are not indicated. The irregular direction of the trenches makes it impossible to obtain a true transverse section of them all, and therefore the epithelium in places appears thicker than it really is (being cut obliquely). Owing to the same cause two or three rows of bulbs are sometimes seen in one thickness of epithelium, s. e. Superficial epithelium with papillary processes below, g. d. Gustatory depressions with smooth epithelium, gld. Serous glands with their ducts (gld. d.) opening into the bottom of the furrows. 2. A Contribution to our Knowledge of the Embiida?, a Family of Orthopterous Insects. By J. W O O D - M A S O N , Deputy Superintendent, Indian Museum, Calcutta. [Eeceived November 28, 1883.] (Plate LVI.) 1. Introduction, p. 628. 2. Discovery of Larvae apparently living in Society, p. 629. 3. Discovery of the Wingless Female, p. 630. 4. Description of the Female Characters, p. 630. 5. Capture of Winged Males, p. 631. 6. Description of the Male Characters, p. 631. 7. O n the Wings of Embia (Oligotoma) saundersii, p. 632. 8. Affinities of the Group, p. 634. Introduction.-While I was at home on furlough in 187/ -79, Mr. R. M'Lachlan, F.R.S., drew my attention to this imperfectly known little group of insects, and begged me to attempt, on my return to India, to supply some of the deficiencies in our knowledge regarding it. I promised to do what I could in the matter; and, before leaving England, prepared myself for m y task by examining the different collections of dried specimens and by reading up the literature of the subject; in particular Mr. M'Lachlan's * then recently published paper, containing (1) a resume of the few and scattered items of additional information that had been placed on record by various naturalists during the forty years that had elapsed since, the appearance of Westwood's2 memoir in the year 1837; (2) descriptions of four new species ; and (3) the record of the discovery, in an orchid-house near London, of the so-called nymph-stage of a species imported into England with plants from India-a valuable observation, which proves that in the Embiida? we have to do with a group of insects whose members, like the true Orthoptera, the Earwigs, and the White Ants, and like the Psocidse, the Physopoda, and the Rhynchota, attain to the adult condition without undergoing any metamorphosis in the entomological sense of the term. From the examination of specimens and the perusal of the literature I arrived at the conclusion that all the specimens of all the species 1 Journal Linn. Soc. Lond., Zoology, vol. xiii. pp. 373-384, pl. xxi. 9 Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond, vol. xxii. pp. 369-375, pl. xi. |