Hugh Scott 108 



thought that they are predaceous. Galloi.s, who observed them in great 

 niiinbers in a bone store in company with Lucilia-\a,Tvae, remarked that 

 when the iVecro6m-larvae were abundant the Lucilia-\sivva,e were 

 scarce, and vice versa, and Ferris ((19) p. 50) quotes him as writing in a 

 letter "cet insecte me parait etre exclusivement carnassier. . .a Fetat de 

 larve, et saprophage . . . a I'etat parfait," while Ferris himself came to 

 the same conclusion ((lO) p. 51). 



Taschenberg ((-'5) p. 16) thinks that the larvae of N. ruficollis have 

 gradually given up the predaceous habit (the general habit of the 

 Cleridae) and adopted saprophagous habits, but that sometimes they 

 return to their primitive ways, killing and devouring fly-larvae. Cholod- 

 kovsky(i) appears to be much of the same opinion. This probably is a 

 correct view of the case, and the observations recorded below tally with it. 



The most usual habitat of Necrobia seems to be among bones, 

 carrion, dried meat, skins, etc. Many writers have stated this, Curtis 

 especially (3) emphasising that Necrobia differs in this respect from all 

 the rest of the Cleridae, including Corynetes: all of them undergoing 

 their metamorphoses in wood. Necrobia has been found more than once 

 among insects discovered in Egyptian mummies (5, 27). It has occurred 

 as a human parasite, a curious and probably quite abnormal case being 

 recorded by Houlbert(9); a small larva, alive and active, was removed 

 from a cyst in the eye of a girl of 14 years, in France. Maxwell-Lefroy(i7) 

 states that N. ruficollis is known to be destructive to the dry cured fish 

 prepared in Sylhet. Kemner ((13) p. 201) found the larvae of N. violacea 

 on carrion, and thinks they are probably predaceous on other larvae. 

 Le Conte(i5) in 1848 recorded this same species as covering the ground 

 under any small piece of animal matter in the "barren regions adjoining 

 the Rocky Mountains." Houlbert and Betis(iO) record observations to 

 the effect that N. violacea and N. ruficollis complete the destruction of 

 carcases commenced by Silphids and Dermestes. Howard (ii), describing 

 the habits of Necrobia rufipes, the "red-legged ham beetle," mentions 

 no kind of larval diet except dried animal matter. I recently found a 

 number of larvae of N. ri/fipes, in various stages of growth, on the top 

 surface of the contents of cases of dried egg, imported from the Far 

 East: several other species of beetles and their larvae were present^. 



^ iSince the above was written, I have seen several references to N. nijlpes in Brv. 

 Appl. Enl., Ser. A, vi, 1918. On pp. 128 and 539 are records of its bein.LC found (in 

 Zanzibar and Ceylon respectively) in the larval and adult states in stored copra, to which 

 it is said to do serious damage. On the other hand, on p. 68 is an allusion to it as 

 breeding (in the Seychelles) everywhere in salt fish, and in this case its presence in copra 

 was regarded as accidental, due to storage of the copra and fish in the same room. 



