The remarkable adaptation by which a Dipterous pupa ( Tabanidae ) is preserved from the danger of fissures in drying mud

[The observations described in the following brief paper were recorded in a letter, written August 14, 1929, from Fort Johnston, Nyasaland, by my old friend the author. They are so remarkable and novel that it seemed only appropriate to extract the relevant passages and communicate them at once to the Royal Society. The specimens exhibited to the meeting and represented in the illustrations arrived shortly after the letter.—E.B.P.]