[ 297 ] 
XVI. On the Natural History, Anatomy and Development of the Oil Beetle, 
Meloé, more especially of Meloé cicatricosus, Leach. By GEORGE 
Newport, F.R.S., F.L.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, &jc. 
First MEMOIR. 
The Natural History of MELoE. 
Read November 18th, 1845. 
THE habits and economy of the genus Meloé of Linnzeus have constituted 
one of the most curious and difficult problems in the natural history of the 
Articulata that have remained unsolved to the present day. Although many 
most zealous naturalists have devoted much attention to these insects, which 
are of large size, and are found in abundance in our meadows throughout the 
spring and summer, no one has hitherto succeeded in tracing out the whole of 
their metamorphoses, or in gaining any satisfactory information respecting their 
general economy. Some of the older naturalists, Mouffet, Goedart, Frisch, 
Geoffroy, DeGeer and Linnzus, and all modern observers, have described 
the perfect insects very accurately; and some of the former, Goedart, Frisch 
and DeGeer, have even given detailed observations on the oviposition of the 
female, on the eggs, and on the early stage of the larva; but beyond this 
they have been unable to pursue their inquiries. No account whatever has 
been given of the adult larva, of the nymph, or of the first appearance of the 
perfect insect. 
This blank in the natural history of an entire genus of our most common 
insects has arisen in part from the anomalous habits of the species, which 
seem to exist in the early periods of their life as parasites, and in the later as 
purely vegetable feeders. It has also in part arisen from the doubts that 
have repeatedly been expressed of the accuracy of the statements made by 
the three distinguished naturalists just mentioned respecting the earliest stage 
of the larva, and of the probability of the conclusions to which they seemed 
