352 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



ever on the search for eggs, on happening npon a locust egg gnaws 

 into it, and then sucks the contents. A second egg is attacked and 

 its contents exhausted, when, owing to its comparatively inactive habits 

 and rich nourishing food after a period of inactivity and rest, the skin 

 splits along its back, and at about the eighth day from beginning to take 

 food the second larva appears, with much smaller and shorter legs, a 

 much smaller head, and with reduced mouth-parts. This is the Cara- 

 bicloid stage of Riley. After feeding for about a week in the egg a 

 second moult occurs, and the change of form is slight, though the mouth- 

 parts and legs are still more rudimentary, and the body assumes " the 

 clumsy aspect of the typical lamellicorn larva." This Riley denomi- 

 nates the Scarabaeidoid stage of the second larva. 



After six or seven days there is another transformation, the skin 

 being cast, and the insect passes into another stage, " the ultimate stage 

 of the second larva." The larva, immersed in its rich nutritious 

 food, grows rapidly, and after about a week leaves the now addled and 

 decaying locust eggs and burrows into the clear sand, where it lies on 

 its side in a smooth cell or cavity, and where it undergoes an incomplete 

 ecdysis, the skin not being completely shed, and assumes the semi- 

 pupa stage, or coarctate larval stage of Riley. 



In the spring the partly loose skin 'is rent on the top of the head 

 and thorax, and then crawls out of it the " third larva," which only 

 differs from the ultimate stage of the second larva " in the somewhat 

 reduced size and greater whiteness." The insect in this stage is said 

 to be rather active, aud burrows about in the ground, but food is not 

 essential, and in a few days it transforms into the true pupa state. 



These habits and the corresponding hypermetamorphosis are proba- 

 bly common to all the Meloidae, though the life history of the other 

 species has yet to be traced. 



In the genus Hornia described by Riley, the wings of the imago 

 are more reduced than in any other of the family, both sexes having 

 the elytra as rudimentary as in the European female glow-worm 

 (Lampyris noctiluca). These, with the simple tarsal claws and the 

 enlarged heavy abdomen, as Riley remarks, " show it to be a degra- 

 dation al form." 



Its host is Anthophora, and the beetle itself lives permanently in 

 the sealed cells of the bee, and Riley thinks it is subterranean, seldom 

 if ever leaving the bee gallery. The triungulin is unknown, but the 

 ultimate stage of the second larva, as well as the coarctate larva, is 

 like those of the family in general, the final transformations taking 

 place within the two unrent skins, in this respect the insect approach- 

 ing Sitaris. 



