MELECTA. 257 



? Atropos, Newman. 

 ? Lachesis, Newman. 

 2. armata, Panzer, J ? . 6-7 lines. 

 punctata, Kirby. 

 ? Tisiphone, Newman. 

 ? Alecto, Newman. 

 ? Clot ho, Newman. 

 ? Megtera, Newman. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



Named from yu,e)u, honey, Xeyw, / collect ; which is 

 scarcely the case, for the parasites, although they may 

 indulge in the luxury of honey as epicures, or resort to 

 it as a repast, cannot be said to collect it, for it is only 

 the labouring bees that truly collect it for the purpose 

 of storing. 



These insects are extremely handsome, their ground- 

 colour being intensely black, brightly shining on the 

 abdomen, upon the segments of which it is laterally 

 ornamented with silvery pubescent tufts and spots ; the 

 black legs are also variously ringed with similar silver 

 down. The great variation these spots and markings 

 undergo from what cause we know not has induced 

 several entomologists to consider them as distinct spe- 

 cies. But the strongest varieties so rarely recur with 

 identical ornaments, and as almost all can be closelv 



v 



connected together in a regular series by interlacing 

 differences impossible to divide, it would be certainly 

 incorrect^ without stronger characteristics, to raise such 

 fugitive variations to specific rank. Whether the cu- 

 rious spines of the scutellum which they possess fur- 

 nish a more certain character is doubtful, for we find 

 all such processes equally liable to variation in size and 



s 



