354 Mr. Newport on the Natural History 



on the leaves and flowers of the Ranunculi and the Taraxacum, devouring them 

 in large quantities. 



The conclusion, then, to which these facts seem to lead is, that the larva of 

 Meloe is truly parasitical in its habits. Whether, like Stylops, it penetrates 

 into the body of the young bee, or whether it preys on its substance through 

 the wounded tegument, while the bee is nourished with its mixture of pollen 

 and honey, is matter for future investigation. From the fact which I for- 

 merly stated, that the last skin which the Meloe larva throws off, before it has 

 acquired the full-grown apodal state, — in which I have found it in the cells of 

 Anthophora, — still retains the envelopes of the claws, and of .very short tarsal, 

 tibial and femoral joints, I am inclined to believe that it does not enter the 

 body of the bee-larva: that in all probability it wounds it, and preys on its 

 fluids from without. This kind of parasitism resembles that of Scolia Jlavi- 

 frons on the larva of Oryctes nasicornis, as recently so well shown by Signor 

 Passerini *. 



The anatomy of the young Meloe larva shows that its attack on the bee 

 must take place at an early period ; and either, that having destroyed the 

 recently hatched bee-larva, its first tegument is cast, its mandibles are altered, 

 and it then subsists on the food that had been stored up for the bee in the closed 

 cell, and there gradually changes its form to that in which I have constantly 

 found it (fig. 15); or that, like the larva of Clerus, having destroyed the bee 

 in one cell, it penetrates into another and preys on the inhabitant, until it has 

 attained its full growth, when it remains in one of these cells and undergoes its 

 metamorphoses. The structure of the full-grown larva, the form of its head 

 (fig. 10) immediately before it enters that state in which I have obtained it, the 

 very altered form of its mandibles at that period, changed from the slender acute 

 organs (fig. 8) it possessed at its birth, to thickened, short, corneous, obtuse 

 jaws (fig. 1 1), fitted for bruising or comminuting its food, and its thickened, 

 diminutive legs (fig. 14), — facts of its organization which I have ascertained 

 by relaxing and unfolding the skin which it throws off on entering the apodal 

 state, — all conspire to lead me to incline to the first of these views. This may 

 explain the supposed anomaly in the habits of the species, of a sudden transi- 



* Osservazioni sulle larve, ninfe, e abitudini della Scolia fiavifrons, del Dott. Carlo Passerini. 

 Pisa, 1840, 4to, pp. 15. Continuazione delle osservazioni nell' anno 1841 sulle larve di Scolia fiavi- 

 frons. Firenze, 1841, 4to, pp. 7. 



