They in the matter of colouration also adapt themselves to their surroundings, and are usually green or brown when at rest, though when the wings are expanded they exhibit some brilliant tints. In some groups the species are winged in both sexes; others have only winged males; and one group is wingless in both sexes, the latter generally long, slender, and stick-like.

This family contains some of the giants of the insect world; specimens of several of our Australian species measure 12 inches in length; while supposed closely allied fossil forms unearthed in the Carboniferous deposits of Europe measure up to 19 inches and were supplied with immense wings. The female while crawling about among the foliage drops her eggs singly on the ground beneath, where, protected in their hard shells among the litter, they sometimes remain over a year before the baby phasma comes out. The remarkable form and texture of these hard oval egg cases has attracted the attention of entomologists in many countries, and Sharp has figured and described some from New Britain.

Just as the Mantis has adapted its colour and shape to catch its prey, so the phasma to protect itself from its many enemies has evolved wonderful leaf-like processes upon the wings and legs, agreeing in style with the surrounding foliage. It is noticeable that the larger bodied female is often more leaf-like than her slender mate, probably because more helpless; this is particularly so in the gravid or egg-laying condition.

G. R. Gray described a number of our species in the Transactions of the Entomological Society 1836, and others in the “Entomology of Australian Phasmidae” 1833, and later in his “Synopsis Phasmidae”; Westwood in his “Catalogue of the Orthopterous Insects in the British Museum” 1859 describes some; a few have been described by Macleay, Leach, McCoy and Rainbow, bringing our list up to about 60 species. In Kirby’s Catalogue 95 species are listed from all parts of the world, but no additions are made to our list.

The members of the Genus Bacillus are slender, wingless, stick-like creatures of which 5 species are recorded from Australia. The Great Brown Phasma, Acrophylla titan, is the type of one of our groups, containing 11 species described from this country. The female measures 8 inches to the tip of the body, and is slightly broader across the outspread wings; the general form of head and thorax to base of tegmina is slender; the abdomen is thickened; the legs and mesothorax are spiny. The general colour is greyish brown; the tegmina light brown, but thickly blotched with blue-black so that it is often more black than brown; the wings are very large with the costal area broad and similar in colour to the tegmina, but shaded with red at base, the hind membranous part of them light chocolate irregularly mottled with dull greyish brown. The male is more slender in form, about an inch shorter, the smaller tegmina mottled with greenish yellow; the front of the wings, which are proportionately small, are of the same colour, and the hind portion dark chocolate finely mottled with light brown. This large stick-insect used to be common about Sydney before the scrub was cleared away, and ranges northward up the coast. Gray says: “It is found on low scrubs about Port Jackson where the inhabitants call it “Walking Straw” or the “Animated Stick.”

The Genus Podacanthus is represented by 3 fine species. The large pink winged phasma, P. typhon, has a wide range from Victoria to Queensland. When resting with closed wings it is of a uniform rich green tint, but when the wings are opened out, the upper surface of the abdomen and the wings behind the frontal stripe are bright rose red. The female measures 5 inches to the tip of the body and over 7 inches across the outspread wings. In this genus the mesothorax is short, the dorsal surface covered with short spined bosses and the metathorax swelling out into a thickened body tapering to the large boat shaped ovipositor. The male is smaller and much more slender.

P. wilkinsoni is a gregarious species, appearing in the summer in the New England forests in countless thousands, stripping every leaf off the eucalyptus bushes as they travel along to the south-east, so that all the trees look as if they had been killed by ringbarking, from which habit they have received the name of “Lourie’s Ringbarkers,” Mr. Lourie being the owner of Noundoc Station, where they are very numerous. The female measures about 3½ inches to the tip of the body, which is broad and thickset from the shoulders, of a general uniform bright green tint on the dorsal surface, with the ventral somewhat blackened and roughened. When the wings are expanded the front margin shows the basal part pale orange yellow, and the membranous part behind varying from rich rose red to pink. The male is a more slender insect of a dull olive green tint, about the same length, with the broad wings delicate purple. They appear with well developed wings about New Year, and are depositing their eggs toward the end of February, the first frost killing the last of them off.

Didymuria violescens was described and figured in Leach’s “Zoological Miscellanies 1815” as our typical Australian Phasma; Gray again figured it in colours in his “Entomology of Australia” under the name of the “Violet-winged tailed Spectre.” It is a slender species not unlike the last, of a brownish yellow colour, with wings of a deep violet almost red tint; and it has 3 large spines on the thighs of the hind legs.

The Genus Tropidoderus contains four species according to the latest catalogue, though there is some doubt whether one or two should not be defined as only varieties of T. childreni described by Gray.

T. rhodomus is figured and described by McCoy; it measures 6 inches in length and 9 across the outspread wings. With closed wings it is a rich green, but when they are expanded, the basal portion of the wings is bright red, with the apical portion green, and the rest semitransparent. The tegmina is short, leaf-like, green above, but shaded with red on the under-surface. This is one of the short-necked broad-bodied forms, and while the fore-legs are long and slender, the thighs of the mid and hind pair are dilated into flattened leaf-like forms; it is found, clinging among the foliage of the gum trees, from Victoria to Queensland. The typical T. childreni differs from this form in having the basal portion of the apical area of the wings yellow instead of red, and the hyaline wings tinged with yellow. McCoy has figured another under the name of T. iodomus: and Rainbow a fourth from the neighbourhood of Sydney under the name of T. decipiens which also comes very close to the typical species; it has the basal portion of the apical area of the wings purple.

Extatosoma tiaratum is remarkable for the great difference in the sexes; the male is a rare insect, about 4 inches long; is a dull dark green, with small tegmina; the wings are large, rounded at the tip, the apical margin green with the rest semiopaque, dark brown, mottled with whitish bands; the head is conical, coming to a point at the summit and cleft in the centre, covered with fine tubercles.

The female measures about 5 inches, is of a similar colour, large and swollen in proportion; the tegmina are represented by two flaps, and the wings are wanting. The head is of the same conical shape as that of the male, but larger; neck short and stout; the legs produced into dilated spiny leaf-like processes, cut out and arcuate like the leaves of holly; and the lower segments of the abdomen are fringed with spiny leaf-like appendages. Often the large body is mottled with white specks and smutty blotches, giving it a wonderful resemblance to the foliage among which it hides. It has a very wide range from Tasmania to New Guinea.

Clemacantha regale is a large, handsome, very long phasma over 9 inches in length, of a combined yellow and green tint; the head is striped with parallel green and pale yellow. The leaf-like tegmina are striped with white; wings have the apical area green shaded with pink at base; rest semitransparent with a blue tint. It ranges from N.S. Wales to Queensland.

Family 8. Short-horned Grasshoppers.
ACRIDIIDAE.

These are insects with the thighs of the hind legs swollen or enlarged, much longer than the fore legs, and adapted for jumping. The tarsi are composed of three distinct segments. The antennae are short, containing less than 30 joints; the ovipositor of the females is not sabre-shaped, but composed of short plates adapted for boring into the ground; and the organs representing ears are placed on the sides of the first abdominal segment. This group of the Orthoptera may be described as the short-horned locusts or grasshoppers in contradistinction to the tree or grass dwelling green grasshoppers with long thread-like antennae. All the true plague locusts that ravage many of the warmer countries and do an immense amount of damage belong to this division. Many species have a wide range; our locusts are allied to the African and Indian forms. Most of the species are winged, and many are capable of long sustained flight; these are furnished with air sacs in the interior of the thorax and abdomen; these when distended with air assist in lightening the otherwise heavy body. The remarkable shrill notes produced by some of these insects are caused by rubbing the inner edge of the hind thigh against the outer surface of the wing covers which are frequently furnished with ridges or raised veins for this purpose. The so-called ears consist of a membrane covering a small opening on the abdomen, and are of a somewhat different structure in different groups.

The reproductive organs of the female consist of several anal plates that are used after the manner of an auger to cut a circular pit in the hard soil, the abdominal segments being extended while the operation is going on; the eggs are deposited at the bottom of the hole, enclosed in a similar exudation as that which encloses the eggs of the mantis, and some of the plague locusts deposit two or more egg masses before they die. These grasshoppers have been studied by many entomologists, who have subdivided them into different groups. Brunner von Wattenwyl places them under nine sub-families or tribes chiefly based on the structure of the head. Saussure has described some of our species; Walker, Stoll and Blanchard others.

The Yellow-winged Locust, Locusta danica, is common in open forest country all over Australia, and usually makes a rustling noise as it flies up; it is too well known to need describing; with its wings closed it is a mottled, dull brown and green insect up to 2 inches in length, with a short broad head and crested thorax; when the wings are opened it shows a large patch of rich yellow banded with black. The male is often fully a third smaller than the female. It has been described under a great number of different names, but is now considered the same insect as found in the South of Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Blue Mountain Locust, Oedaleus senegalensis, might easily be mistaken for a smaller dull coloured specimen of the last one, but the yellow tint, when present, is very slight, and the wings have the tips blackened as well as the inner band. It has a wide range over Australia, and is also found in Africa from which place it was described by Krauss.

The Large Coast Locust, Acridium maculicollis, is sometimes found in gardens; it measures 3 inches to the tip of the wings, and is greyish brown with darkly mottled elytra. Locusta australis is like the Yellow-winged Locust, with more regularly mottled elytra, and clear transparent wings. The small plain Locust, Chortoicetes pusilla, is under 1 inch in length; the male is of a general bright yellow colour, and the female, somewhat larger, of a general greyish brown tint. It is the species that for the last few years has done so much damage to our grass and crops in the Western country. C. terminifera is one-third larger, and is of a general light brown mottled colour, with the wings semitransparent, tipped with dull brown; it at times is one of our plague locusts. The Rose-winged Locust, Hyalopteryx australis, is one of our small but very noisy locusts, about 8 lines in length; when at rest it is light brown mottled with darker tints, the expanded hind wings are brightly shaded with rose pink and clouded with black. It is found in open grass lands, and when disturbed rises with a very shrill screech. The Red-legged Locust, Cirphula pyrocnemis, is a short broad insect about 1 inch long; is of a general dark brown tint, with the expanded wings dark yellowish brown: the head and thorax are roughened; the abdominal segments are dull yellow with several black bands on the sides: it is common on the open flats about Sydney in summer. The common “Great Striped Locust,” Cyrtacanthacris exacta, measures nearly 3 inches; it ranges all along the Eastern coast and is often seen in secluded gardens; it has a broad dorsal stripe down the centre, varying from yellow to dull green.

The Long-nosed Locust, Tryxalis rafflesii, is very common in open grassed flats; the female is nearly 3 inches long, with a slender pointed head, and long pointed body, varying from all shades of grass green to pale salmon colour. It is easily recognised by its curious finger-like antennae, and grotesque head. The male is a very slender, much smaller insect. The pink-winged Tryxalid, Atrastemorpha crenaticeps, is much smaller; it has a pointed head of a uniform pale green tint; the wings are brightly tinted with red, deepest at the shoulders. The Ridge-backed Grasshopper, Goniaea australasiae, is a large, stout, reddish brown insect about 2 inches long, which lives on the hills in open forest; the male is a much smaller hopper, but both sexes have the head, thorax, and closed wings forming a sharp ridge down the back. In similar open forest country we find Coryphistes cyanopterus, which usually rests on the tree trunks, with its slightly roughened head, thorax, and mottled elytra closely resembling the bark. It measures 2½ inches in length, but though it is very variable in size and outward colouration, the wings when expanded always show a rich blue tint. The Crested Locust, Ecphantus quadrilobis, is one of our western forms that rests among the dry grass on the plains; it is dull green to yellow, short and thickset; is 1½ inches long; with the back ridged, and the crested thorax formed into 4 lobes. The spotted locust, Stropis maculosa, is another of our western forms; it is broad and thickset; about 2 inches long; of a uniform dark brown tint, with the thorax barred, and the elytra mottled with large patches of light yellow.

There are also many other curious forms of wingless, short-horned locusts in the interior, belonging to several genera, and probably some fine things that have never reached our museums.

Family 9. Long-horned Grasshoppers.
LOCUSTIDAE.

These grasshoppers are found not only among the grass but on low shrubs, or in tree tops, feeding upon the foliage; while others, many of them wingless, live underground after the manner of crickets. Among those that frequent trees are some that, like the phasmids, have the legs and wing-covers so wonderfully veined and spotted that they are an exact imitation of the leaves of their food plant. They are easily distinguished from the previous group by their long, slender, thread-like antennae composed of a number of fine joints; in most cases the body is softer; and in the female furnished with a sabre-like ovipositor with which she generally deposits her eggs in rows along the side of a leaf or twig, though others place them on the ground. The basal portion of the thigh of the hind leg is generally thickest, and most of the species have four jointed tarsi, with the ear process not upon the base of the abdomen, but on the knees of the fore-legs. Some are said to be carnivorous, and I have twice seen a large green species which comes to the flowers of the stunted angophora devouring honey bees, but probably more for the honey they contain than the blood of the bee.

Brunner von Wattenwyl has written a great deal about these insects and described a number of Australian species. Tepper is one of the few Australian entomologists who has taken up this group, describing some in the Transactions of the Royal Society of S. Australia: in the Locustidae of the world Sharp groups them into fifteen tribes. Most of these Orthoptera are solitary or found in pairs; some too have a very musical note.

The Mountain Grasshopper, Acridopeza reticulata, is such a curious looking creature that it has been figured and noted by many naturalists. Both sexes are of a uniform dull brown colour, but very different in structure; the male measures 2 inches; has long pointed elytra, and well developed wings; the head is small; the antennae slender and thread-like; the eyes stand out on the side of the head, and the thorax is saddle shaped. The female is furnished with a very short, rounded body richly mottled with blue, white, and red, covered with a pair of rounded, short, shell-like elytra, but the wings are wanting. When disturbed she stands on tiptoes, arches her body, raises her elytra exposing all the bright tints of her body, which probably act as a warning to her enemies.

Plate VI.—ORTHOPTERA.

Family Locustidae.

Another remarkable grasshopper is Alectoria superba, found in the dry western country among the grass; it is a long, slender, green insect, measuring 2½ inches; the elytra and legs are richly mottled with bright reddish brown; the thorax is produced into a large circular crest edged with bright red, a large boss below on either side, and another projecting above the head. The female has a very small lance-like ovipositor. The Speckled Green Grasshopper, Ephippitytha 32-guttata, is about the same length as the last, of a somewhat lighter green tint, and has the elytra mottled with a double row of black spots varying from 32 to 44 in number. The head is small, the thorax short and somewhat saddle-shaped. It is found about Sydney on flowering shrubs; and there is a darker variety which has a wide range over the interior, to which Tepper has given the name of E. quadrigesima-guttatus. The Small Green Grasshopper, Caedicia valida, is one of our dainty, slender, green species found in the gardens, where it sometimes damages the young fruit by gnawing patches off the skin, or nibbles holes in the foliage; it produces a sharp musical note uttered three times in succession.

The Large Green Leaf Grasshopper, Locusta vigentissima, figured by McCoy, is also found on low shrubs in the summer; it measures nearly 3 inches, and is of a uniform dull green colour, with the head, legs and antennae more or less yellow: the head is broad; the thorax stout; the legs long and spiny; the elytra long, tapering to the tips; the wings large, semitransparent; the abdomen short, in the female furnished with a long sabre-like ovipositor. The Lance-headed Grasshopper, Pseudorhynchus lessonii, has a wide range along the eastern coast among the long grass; it is green, with the tips of the elytra marked with yellow; the wings are small, and the front of the head produced into a lance-like point. Among the foliage of the eucalypts in Southern Australia there is a very handsome large grasshopper with the head small, the thorax very square, and the elytra very leaf-like in form; it has a curious bloom upon it like that upon many of the gum leaves, and is a very fine case of mimicry.

The Genus Anostosoma comprises a number of reddish brown wingless locusts more like crickets in many ways, for they live chiefly in holes in the ground, have long thread-like antennae, and stout spiny legs. Anostosoma australasiae is a very formidable looking insect with immense head and jaws, originally described from Moreton Bay; it is sometimes found about Sydney, measuring 3 inches in length; it has antennae over 4 inches long. The smaller species, Anostosoma erinaceus, is of a similar colour and form, but not more than 1½ inches in length; it is not uncommon in gardens.

Paragryllacris combusta lives in hiding during the day under a curled leaf spathe of a palm frond, or in a cavity in a tree trunk; if in the last it often forms a white tough substance of a net-like structure over the front, and if disturbed will snap at a grass blade or straw and shake the net, making a distinct sharp sound. It is of a uniform, yellowish brown tint, measuring about 2 inches to the tip of the large curled wings closely folded over the body.

The curious Cave Locust, Pachyrhamma sp., with its small oval body, and long slender antennae and hind legs, is always found in caves. It is a dull brown wingless creature, whose slender thread-like antennae are many times longer than the body.

Family 10. Crickets.
GRYLLIDAE.

These are the black field and house crickets which are so well known by their shrill note; this is caused by the insect rubbing the stout wing covers or elytra together; those of the males have a distinct circular wavy neuration forming distinct ridges for this purpose.

Crickets are easily distinguished by their slender thread-like antennae, short rounded heads, black wings folded down the back, and spiny hind legs adapted both for creeping through the grass or jumping out of the road of their enemies. The abdomen is furnished with a pair of slender spined appendages on the sides, and the female with a stiletto-like ovipositor composed of two grooved pieces by which the eggs are deposited in the ground.

We have a number of field crickets in this country; Walker in his catalogue of the family gives 12 species, of which Gryllus servillei is our common field cricket, sometimes swarming out in sufficient numbers to do a great deal of damage to field crops and vegetable gardens. It is of a uniform black tint, with a short, shining, round head; it measures about 1 inch in length, and has a wide range over Australia. The Mole Cricket, Gryllotalpa coarctata, is found all over the interior, forming underground tunnels in the sand along the edges of watercourses; it was collected in the Horn Expedition in Central Australia, and is also found about Sydney. It is of the usual dull brown tint, with hooded thorax and spade-shaped fore-legs. Another curious little black cricket is common about the edges of watercourses, and when disturbed often jumps in and swims about on the surface; it belongs to the Genus Nemobius, and is only ⅙ of an inch in length.

Plate VII.—ORTHOPTERA.

Family Gryllidae.