Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/291

Rh of black, and many irregular transverse patches of a paler colour; posterior wings sooty-brown at the base; yellowish-brown at the extremity, with about fifteen larger and rounded spots of white, formed by a cottonny matter. From Assam.

MEMBRACIS FOLIATA. XXIV. Fig. 2. insect affords a good example of a very remarkable genus, distinguished by having the prothorax excessively elevated, compressed, and foliaceous, extending along the back like a kind of roof, under which the body of the insect is almost concealed. It is a native of Cayenne; about four and a half lines in length (the figure being greatly magnified); the colour blackish-brown, the gibbous thorax with a broad arch and band of white. The hemelytra are oval and much longer than the wings; the legs long, flattened, and rather broad.

XXV. plate is devoted to the representation of three species of the singular group named, which approaches in essential characters to the preceding. Like it the prothorax is large and gibbous, produced in various fantastic forms over the scutellum, which is bidentate at the apex. "Of all Nature's works," says Mr. Curtis, who has illustrated the genus by dissections of a British species, amongst the insect tribes, this family is the most remarkable for the grotesque and extraordinary forms the species exhibit: the thorax being produced in the shape of horns of