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XVI. On the Natural History, Anatomy and Development of the Oil Beetle, 

 Meloe, more especially of Meloe cicatricosus, Leach. By George 

 Newport, F.R.S., F.L.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, 8fc. 



First Memoir. 

 The Natural History of Meloe. 



Read November 18th, 1845. 



X HE habits and economy of the genus Meloe of Linnaeus have constituted 

 one of the most curious and difficult problems in the natural history of the 

 Articulata that have remained unsolved to the present day. Although many 

 most zealous naturalists have devoted much attention to these insects, which 

 are of large size, and are found in abundance in our meadows throughout the 

 spring and summer, no one has hitherto succeeded in tracing out the whole of 

 their metamorphoses, or in gaining any satisfactory information respecting their 

 general economy. Some of the older naturalists, Mouffet, Goedart, Frisch, 

 GeofFroy, DeGeer and Linnaeus, and all modern observers, have described 

 the perfect insects very accurately ; and some of the former, Goedart, Frisch 

 and DeGeer, have even given detailed observations on the oviposition of the 

 female, on the eggs, and on the early stage of the larva ; but beyond this 

 they have been unable to pursue their inquiries. No account whatever has 

 been given of the adult larva, of the nymph, or of the first appearance of the 

 perfect insect. 



This blank in the natural history of an entire genus of our most common 

 insects has arisen in part from the anomalous habits of the species, which' 

 seem to exist in the early periods of their life as parasites, and in the later as 

 purely vegetable feeders. It has also in part arisen from the doubts that 

 have repeatedly been expressed of the accuracy of the statements made by 

 the three distinguished naturalists just mentioned respecting the earliest stage 

 of the larva, and of the probability of the conclusions to which they seemed 



