70 MR. NEWPORT ON THE ANATOMY AND DEVELOPMENT 
Postseript to the foregoing Section of this Paper. 
| Read May 1, 1849. 
I am desirous of appending a few remarks to the section of this paper that has already 
been communicated to the Society, before proceeding with the remainder. 
These refer to the second bee-parasite described, and provisionally named Monodonto- 
merus nitidus. The parasitism of insects of this genus on Anthophora had not previously 
been ascertained. JM. obsoletus had been suspected of infesting the genus Osmia*, like 
one of its affinities t, but its larva, so far as I am aware, was unknown. I found the 
larva of M. nitidus in the nests of Anthophora, on the 27th of September, 1847, and men- 
tioned the fact to an entomologist, Mr. F. Smith, who, some time afterwards, as he him- 
self informed me, obtained. specimens of it from the same locality. From a note on its 
habits, which he has recently communicated to this Society 1, it appears that the larva is 
carnivorous, and feeds on the bee-larva, and not on its food, as I had believed. lam 
thankful for this correction of observation. The mistake arose in my haste to furnish 
part of this paper for reading to the Society by a given time, which obliged me to forego an 
examination of the parts of the mouth, which are difficult to observe, and compelled me to 
rely on the appearance of the fæces, and on the fact of having found my full-grown speci- 
mens in the cell of the bee with the dried-up remains of the bee-larva. I have now made 
the required observations on the oral organs, and also have microscopically examined the 
contents of the digestive apparatus, and these lead me to agree with Mr. Smith in regarding 
the larva as carnivorous, and not as pollinivorous. The mandibles are slender, arched 
and acute, and are fitted only for piercing, and not for comminuting food ; the labium and 
maxillæ are thick, large and membranous, somewhat like those of the larva of Paniscus. 
The contents of the digestive apparatus I found to consist of large and small nucleated 
celis, consolidated together, and darkened in appearance, conditions induced probably by 
admixture with secretions from the parietes of the apparatus during digestion. 
Thus further examination of this larva tends but to confirm, instead of to confute the 
general view which I have constantly maintained,—that structure, when carefully and 
accurately investigated, is an infallible index to function and habit. My incorrectness in 
adum as w the particular kind of food of the larva of Monodontomerus was the result of 
See — and it is now rectified by direct observation on the habits 
braun s en ae = ntion to its anatomy. Yet the main object of this paper 
Soa Bi a on m aim being to show not merely that Hymenopte- 
Mus TT guns s food, but the more general fact of a concordance 
shut up in the same cell with a : that whether the Hymenopterous parasite 1$ 
nn ie t continues to feed, or whether it preys on the 
teen = ss 5 kde is closed and incomplete until it has 
BINA BLU dr do dcl quired its Tull size, when the canal becomes perforated, and 
7 jection of the refuse of nutrition; the necessity for this late com- 
à sie: M i Be : of digestion having reference to the preservation of the food of the 
In a condition fitted for its proper nourishment. 
* D f 
Westwood’s Introduction, &e., vol. ii. p. 160. + Id. t Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 29. 
