408 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



bees, especially those of the genus Anthophora, into the cells 

 which she has prepared for her young. The triungulin is enabled 

 to cling tenaceously by means of the triple claws, aided in some 

 genera (Hornia, etc.) by a silky fluid from an anal spinneret; 

 but it carefully slips into the bee-cell before this last is closed. 

 Here it waits its time until the bee-larva is hatched, or else destroys 

 the egg and feeds upon the bee-bread stored for the bee-larva. 

 These beetles furnish excellent illustrations of what may be called 

 partial parasitism ; but I need not go further into details in this 

 connection, having fully treated of the genera first mentioned in 

 the Transactions of the Academy of Sciences of St Louis, Vol. 

 Ill, and in the First Report of the U. S. Entomological Com 

 mission (1877). Dr. H. Beauregard has also more recently given 

 us (Les Insectes vesicants, 1890) the life-histories of the genera 

 Cerocoma, Cantharis, Zonitis, and Mylabris, besides adding 

 many new points in the histories of Sitaris, Stenoria, and Meloe. 



Hyper-metamorphosis finds its most complete exemplification 

 in these beetles, as, after the triungulin has once begun to feed, 

 it soon molts and the larva goes through what I have called the 

 caraboid, scaraboid, and coarctate larval stages, each indicating 

 increasing loss of structure, and the latter reminding us of the 

 coarctate puparia of the Diptera. There is a subsequent free or 

 ultimate larva, with more perfect members, from which the true 

 pupa is derived. In Hornia we have the various transformations, 

 after the scaraboid stage, all taking place within successively 

 separated and inflated skins, which are not cast ofF or sloughed. 



Finally, the Platypsyllidae and Leptinidae must be mentioned 

 as parasitic families of the Coleoptera, the imagos being 

 parasitic upon rodents, very much as are fleas and lice. It is only 

 necessary for me to add, in this connection, to what has been pub 

 lished upon these curious and abnormal beetles, or to what I have 

 presented to the Society, that the complete life-history of none of 

 them has been yet made out. In the case of Platypsyllus, however, 

 there was every reason to assume that, as with the true lice, it goes 

 through its whole life-development upon its host, the beaver. 

 Yet, from the utter failure, so far, to obtain the eggs or the true 

 pupa, I am gradually being forced to the conclusion that both 

 larva and 'imago may pass a free semi-aquatic stage, the former 

 transforming to pupa within the ground, and the latter, after its 



