298 Mr. Newport on the Natural History 
to lead, respecting so extraordinary a change in the economy of an insect as 
that of its passing from a life of parasitism to one of a totally opposite con- 
dition. But such indeed appears to be the fact ; and the details of the obser- 
vations I am about to communicate ought perhaps to teach us not to treat 
with contumely or doubt that which we are unable positively to disprove, 
however strange or anomalous any statements of direct observations may 
appear, or however incongruous they may seem to be with established facts, 
when such statements are made by observers of otherwise acknowledged 
credit. | 
It is now more than fifteen years ago since I first endeavoured to trace the 
changes of Meloé ; but although I succeeded at that time, and through several 
following years, in observing the deposition of the eggs, and in obtaining the 
larvze from them, and also in procuring the adult larva, the nymph, and the | 
perfect insect before it left the cell in which it had undergone its metamor- 
phoses, I have been unable to obtain the means, so satisfactorily as I could 
have wished, of showing the transitional forms which the larva assumes in: 
passing from its earliest to its full-grown state. On this account I have 
forborne to make known the facts I have been for many years acquainted 
with respecting these insects. Fearing however that I may not again have 
an opportunity of pursuing this inquiry, I now propose to communicate these 
facts to the Linnean Society, in the hope that some naturalist, more fortunate 
than myself, may complete the investigation. 
1. Or THE PrnrEcr IusEcr. 
The species of Meloé that have been the subjects of my inquiry, are Meloé 
proscarabeus, M. violaceus, and M. cicatricosus, but more especially the latter, 
although the whole very closely resemble each other in form as well as in their 
habits and economy. 
My observations have been made at intervals since the year 1830, on spe- 
cimens obtained from a vertical bank of clay and sand that forms the south- 
eastern boundary of the ruins of the Roman castle at Richborough, near 
Sandwich in Kent, where these insects, at their proper season, are most 
abundant. The perfect insects come forth at that place very early in the 
spring, and sometimes, when the temperature of the atmosphere has become 
suddenly elevated for a few days, even long before the plants on which they 
