Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/241

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MANTIS DESICCATA.
235

segments are lobed. The tegmina are ornamented near the tips, beneath, with a large black spot surrounded by a white circle, which appears through the semi-transparent tegmina on the upper side; the posterior wings are very dark brown, the costa and tips being paler brown. The anterior femora are of a moderate size, shining beneath, with four short black bars at the base of the spines. The four posterior legs are slender, the thighs having a small membranous bifid lobe near the tips.

This insect, which must be regarded as a singular one even in the eccentric tribe to which it belongs, is a native of Malacca, and forms one of the ornaments of the extensive collection of the Rev. F. W. Hope. It enters into Serville's first section of the family, the four posterior thighs being furnished with a membrane at the tips; but the unarmed structure of the head and eyes will not allow it to be referred to any of the genera (or rather subgenera) which he has proposed; Mr. Westwood has, therefore, considered it proper to give it a new subgeneric name, founded on the dilated form of the prothorax, by which character it appears to connect Empusa and Chæradotes; Oxypilus also, having the head elevated in the middle, forms another link between the species with lobed and those with simple tibiæ.


EMPUSA GONGYLODES.

Plate X. Fig. 1.

Latr. Serville.—Mantis Gongylodes, Linn.Roesel. ii. Locusta, Pl. 7.—Stoll. Mant. Pl. 16, figs. 58, 59, 61.—Fabr. Ent. Syst. Drury's Exotic Insects, by Westwood, I Pl. 50, fig. 2.

This genus is distinguished from Mantis by having