102 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



angular head, and live within the abdomen of bees and wasps, 

 though certain foreign genera are parasites in ants and Homoptera. 

 The female is viviparous, giving birth to hundreds of very minute 

 young, which are of very primitive form, with bulbous feet, the 

 slender, hairy body ending in two long styles, and the intestine end- 

 ing as a closed sack. Stylops children! Gray; Xenos peckii Kirby 

 lives in a common wasp (Polistes metricus Say). 



Family Rhipiphoridae. Tarsi with claws (those of Stylopids being 

 clawless), elytra rarely covering the abdomen, as wide as the pro- 

 thorax in front, usually narrowed behind, sometimes (Myodites) 

 very small; rarely (Rhipidius) wanting in the female, in which case 

 the wings are also wanting, and the body is larviform. Rhipidius 

 pectinicornis is parasitic in Europe in Ectobia, germanmi. This form 

 is a connecting link between Stylopidse and other beetles. Metoscus 

 paradoxus Linn, is a parasite in the nests of wasps (Vespa). 



FIG. 98. a, freshly-hatched larva of Meloe, first or Campodea-form stage ; 6, 

 second or carabidoid stage; c, coarctate, footless larva, third stage; d, pupa; 

 e, imago, male. 



Family Meloidae. Prothorax narrower at base than the elytra, 

 which are variable in form, in Melee" very short and pointed; claws 

 cleft or toothed; front of head vertical. Larva primitive, Campodea- 

 form, certain species parasitic on bees; they mostly undergo a hyper- 

 metamorphosis, there being three larval stages (Fig. 98, a, b, c). 



The blister-beetle or Spanish fly, Cantharis vesicatoria, Linn., is rep- 

 resented in the United States by the species of Macrobasis and 

 Epicauta (Fig. 99, E. cinerea Forst.), which, with Horia, pass 

 through a hypernietamorphosis in general like that of Meloe", the oil 

 beetle (Meloe angiisticottis Say). 



Family Pyrochroidae. Antennae often ramose; hindcoxoe large and 

 prominent; claws simple; head horizontal; elytra wider than abdo- 

 men, rounded at tip. Pyrochroa Jlabellata Fabr. ; Dendro'ides canadenm 

 Latr. 



