326 Mr. Newport on the Natural History 



whether they belong to some other allied genus, remains for future investi- 

 gation. I have no doubt that the whole of the hitherto-described yellow spe- 

 cimens found on Hymenoptera and Diptera are the young of true Meloes. 

 The different species of Meloe probably are peculiar to distinct species of 

 Hymenoptera; as it will be remembered that, in the experiments detailed in 

 my former memoir*, I could not succeed in rearing the larvse of Meloe pro- 

 scarabceus or Meloe violaceus in the nests of Anthophora retusa, although I 

 obtained numerous full-grown larvae, nymphs and imagos of Meloe cicatri- 

 cosus from the nests of Anthophora in its natural haunts. 



Since the reading of that memoir, Mr. Smith has obtamed a specimen of 

 Meloe abdominalis, Kirby, MSS.t, in the immature imago state, from the nest of 

 Saropoda or of Colletes, in a bank thickly crowded with the nidi of these bees. 

 The specimen had very recently changed from the nymph to the imago, and 

 was still almost colourless, soft, and exceedingly delicate. In the course of a 

 few weeks it gradually acquired the natural intense blue-black hue of the spe- 

 cies, and its teguments became hardened. In the month of March it was 

 capable of locomotion, and moved about vigorously. It was a male indivi- 

 dual, and is now in Mr. Smith's cabinet. 



Thus then there is good reason to believe that all the Meloes are parasitic 

 on the Hymenoptera. The genera allied to them appear also to have similar 

 habits. M. Gondot J found both sexes of Tetraonyx Jlavipennis, a species 

 recently described by M. Guerin Meneville, in coitu, crawling slowly on the 

 ground, near large stones, in the temperate region of the Cordilleras in 

 Columbia, in places frequented by Bomhi, in the nests of which he believes 

 the larvae of Tetraonyx reside. Mylabris, according to Dr. Gebler§, depo- 

 sits its eggs in the earth in the western parts of Siberia, on the borders of 

 Tartary, where scarcely any trees, and very few shrubs exist. The larvae, 



* Pages 315, 316. 



t On examining Mr. Kirby's specimens in the Cabinet of the Entomological Society, both Mr. Smith 

 and myself are of opinion that the two specimens under this name are only very diminutive varieties of 

 M. proscarabceus. 



X Magazin de Zool. 1844, Ins. tab. 141. 



§ Des Mylabrides de la Siberie occidentale des confins de la Tartaric ; Nouv. M6m. de la Soc. Imp. 

 des Nat. de Moscou, tome vii. 1829. 



