354 Mr. NEwronr on the Natural History 
on the leaves and flowers of the Ranunculi and the Taraxacum, devouring them 
in large quantities. | 
The conclusion, then, to which these facts seem to lead is, that the larva of 
Meloé is truly parasitical in its habits. Whether, like Stylops, it penetrates 
into the body of the young bee, or whether it preys on its substance through 
the wounded tegument, while the bee is nourished with its mixture of pollen 
and honey, is matter for future investigation. From the fact which I for- 
merly stated, that the last skin which the Meloé larva throws off, before it has 
acquired the full-grown apodal state, —in which I have found it in the cells of 
Anthophora,—still retains the envelopes of the claws, and of very short tarsal, 
tibial and femoral joints, I am inclined to believe that it does not enter the 
body of the bee-larva: that in all probability it wounds it, and preys on its 
fluids from without. This kind of parasitism resembles that of Scolia flavi- 
frons on the larva of Oryctes nasicornis, as recently so well shown by Signor 
Passerini *, 
The anatomy of the young Mele larva shows that its attack on the bee 
must take place at an early period ; and either, that having destroyed the 
recently hatched bee-larva, its first tegument is cast, its mandibles are altered, 
and it then subsists on the food that had been stored up for the bee in the closed 
cell, and there gradually changes its form to that in which I have constantly 
found it (fig. 15); or that, like the larva of Clerus, having destroyed the bee 
in one cell, it penetrates into another and preys on the inhabitant, until it has 
attained its full growth, when it remains in one of these cells and undergoes its 
metamorphoses. The structure of the full-grown larva, the form of its head 
(fig. 10) immediately before it enters that state in which I have obtained it, the 
very altered form of its mandibles at that period, changed from the slender acute 
organs (fig. 8) it possessed at its birth, to thickened, short, corneous, obtuse 
jaws (fig. 11), fitted for bruising or comminuting its food, and its thickened, 
diminutive legs (fig. 14),—facts of its organization which I have ascertained 
by relaxing and unfolding the skin which it throws off on entering the apodal 
state,—all conspire to lead me to incline to the first of these views. This may 
explain the supposed anomaly in the habits of the species, of a sudden transi- 
* Osservazioni sulle larve, ninfe, 
Pisa, 1840, 4to, PP. 15. Continuazi 
frons. Firenze, 1841, 4to, pp. 7. 
e abitudini della Scolia flavifrons, del Dott. Carlo Passerini. 
one delle osservazioni nell' anno 1841 sulle larve di Scolia flavi- 
