Linnaan Society. 347 



be established." In this way, he states, " natural history may be 

 made to occupy its proper position as an important branch of useful 

 knowledge, and mainly help to demonstrate the connexion which 

 subsists between structure and function, and function and the habits 

 of animals." 



In pursuing this view, he shows that the organization and instinct 

 of the larva Melo'e closely agree. At the moment of birth, when the 

 larva is destined to attach itself parasitically to the Hymenoptera which 

 alight on flowers to collect pollen, and which are to convey it to their 

 nests, its organs of vision are largely developed, and those of loco- 

 motion are elongated, powerful, and constructed like those of the pa- 

 rasitic Anoplura ; and it is extremely active and sensitive of light. 

 But when, at the period of full growth, it is found in the cell of 

 Anthophora, it is a fattened, yellow-coloured, almost motionless larva, 

 with its legs atrophied and reduced to mere pedal tubercles previous 

 to a further change in their structure when the larva passes to the 

 state of nymph. 



In the course of these observations Mr. Newport proved, by actual 

 comparison, the identity of manj'^ yellow-coloured larvae which had 

 been taken by Mr. Smith on some of the NomadcB (themselves 

 parasitic insects) with the larvae of Meloe, which he had himself 

 reared from the eggs, thus establishing the fact of the parasitic 

 attachment of Meloe to perfect Hymenoptera. The genera allied to 

 Melo'e {Mylahris, Lytta, Telraonyx, Sitaris and Apalus), and those of 

 allied families, Horia, Cipiter, Rhipiphorus, Symhius and others, were 

 all shown to bear a more or less close relation to Meloe in the habits 

 or the structure of their larvae. Sitaris was especially referred to, on 

 the observations of Audouin and Pecchioli, as affording close simi- 

 larity to Meloe both in structure and habit, this species having 

 already been found by the former naturalist in the nests of Antho- 

 phora. 



Mr. Newport then traced the history of the Strepsiptera as now 

 ascertained by the labours of Siebold, most of whose observations he 

 has confirmed, and he showed some remarkable coincidences between 

 the structure and habits of the extremely minute larvae of these in- 

 sects and those of Meloe. The chief of these are their parasitism on 

 the Hymenoptera, and the atrophy of their limbs after they are located 

 in the nests of their victims. So extremely minute are the young 

 Stylops shortly after their birth, that on measuring several, while 

 living, on a micrometer plate, Mr. Newport found that each indivi- 

 dual does not exceed twenty-two thousandths of an inch in length : 

 yet internally this minute object is as fully organized as other in- 

 sects. He then showed that what had been regarded by Dr. Siebold 

 as a caecal termination to the alimentary canal is in fact a reduplica- 

 tion of part of that organ, which after folding twice on itself is con- 

 tinued to the anal segment as in other insects. He also described 

 the imago of this species of Stylops, which, as well as its larvae, had 

 been obtained from the bee, Andrena Trimmerana, and pointing out 

 in what it seems to differ from Stylops melittce, he proposed to de- 

 scribe it as Stylops aterrimvs. 



