328 Mr. Newport on the Natural History 



tain not only that the larvae of Sitaris resemble those otMeloe in general form, 

 but also that they are similar to them in their economy and parasitism. 



Other families of Coleoptera allied to Meloe in the structure of the imago, 

 resemble them also in the habits of the larvae. This is the case, as formerly 

 stated, with Horia*, which in the larva state resides in the cell of the car- 

 penter-bee, Xylocopa Teredo. The precise form of body in which Horia comes 

 from the eg^ is unknown ; and it is also unknown whether the egg is depo- 

 sited in the nest of Xylocopa, or whether, as I strongly suspect, it is conveyed 

 to it on the body of the female Xylocopa as an agile larva, like Meloe, Lytta 

 and Sitaris. In that stage of growth in which it has been delineated and 

 described by Lansdown Guilding, it is a short-legged hexapod, very like the 

 larva of Meloe towards the close of its period of feeding, when it has been 

 long located in the nest of its foster-parent, Anthophora. Cissites maxillosa 

 and C. testacea, Javanese species allied to Horia, are said to reside as larvae 

 in deep burrows in the woodwork of houses f, probably formed by larvae on 

 which these are parasites. Of the larva of Cerocoma and its habits we are at 

 present entirely ignorant. 



Some other genera, less closely allied to Meloe than those we have noticed, 

 differ from it somewhat in the form of the larva, and in the particular habits 

 both of that and of the imago, but resemble it in its general economy of 

 parasitism. Rhipiphorus paradoxus, the pest of the wasp's nest, is believed 

 to deposit her eggs either in the larvae;}: or in the cells § of that insect. 

 Another species, Symbius Blattarum, the female of which is apterous, is 

 parasitic on Blatta Americana\\, and its form, as well as that of its larva, 

 resembles that of Sitaris. A more rare species, Rhipiphorus finnicus of Pay- 

 kull {Pelecotoma Latreillei, Fischer), which is peculiar to Finland, is stated 

 by Count Mannerheim^ to be parasitic on the genus Chrysis. It is often 

 seen to issue from little holes in the doors of old wooden buildings, fre- 

 quented by the Chrysididce in their parasitism on other insects. This para- 

 sitism on parasites is of frequent occurrence amongst insects. Mr. Curtis 



* Linn. Trans, vol. xiv. p. 316. f Westennann in Silbermann, Rev. Entom. No. 3. 



X Hope, Proceed. Ent. Soc. § Westwood, Introduction, vol. i. p. 294. 



II SundevaU, in his, 1831. f Rev. Zool. Feb. 1844, p. 64. 



