1849.] Linnean Society. 25 



cylindrical and slightly attenuated at each extremity, and formed of 

 fourteen segments, with a small head and short acute mandibles, and 

 there were usually from thirty to fifty specimens in each bee- cell. In 

 some instances they changed to nymjihs and imagos at the end of 

 summer, but in others the change did not take place until the 

 spring, at which time the perfect insect comes forth. 



The author states that he was unable to find any description of 

 this curious parasite in the works of entomologists ; the only writer 

 who makes reference to an insect which, possibly, may have some 

 aflSnity with this, being Mr. Westwood, who refers to a species, 

 found by M. Audouin in France, under the name of Melittohia Au- 

 douinii, but without describing it ; so that if the two insects should 

 prove to be identical, which Mr, Newport considers doubtful, this 

 name cannot be adopted. Reaumur and Degeer both found parasites 

 in the cells of Mason-bees, but their species have not been clearly 

 made out. 



The author deduced conclusions with regard to the habits of 

 AntJiophorabia from peculiarities in the anatomy of the sexes, and 

 expressed an opinion, from the absence of an ovipositor in the female, 

 from both sexes being found in activity in the closed bee-ceU, and 

 more especially from the male possessing only stemmata, instead of 

 the usual compound eyes of winged insects, that impregnation is 

 effected before the female first quits the cell, and that she deposits 

 her eggs in new cells while these remain open and are being pro- 

 visioned. The difference of structure and function between compound 

 eyes and ocelli was explained in support of these opinions, and the sexes 

 of Anthophorabia were contrasted with those of Stylops, as described 

 by the author in his " Memoir on Meloe," read to the Society on the 

 19th of January 1847. These differences of structure in similar or- 

 gans were regarded as always indicatory of peculiarities in economy. 



A second species of Chalcididce had also been found by the author, 

 in the larva state, in the nests oi Anthophora, on the 12th of Sep- 

 tember 1847, at Gravesend, and which he at first mistook for the 

 larvae of the species now named Anthophorabia. These larvse after- 

 wards proved to be of a species which he named provisionally Mono- 

 dontomerus nitidus. The general form of the larva and the armature 

 of its body were then described, and the question discussed as to 

 whether it was a carnivorous feeder, subsisting on the body of the 

 bee larva, or a pollinivorous, subsisting on its food. The armature 

 of hairs on the surface of its body showed that it was not an internal- 

 feeding larva, as the author has never yet found the internal-feeding 

 parasites of insects clothed with hairs. From the presence of hairs 



