240 LIFE STORIES OF AUSTRALIAN INSECTS. 



was now an empty shell. It detached itself and 

 began to spin its pretty silken pupal home and 

 gradually disappeared within it. The outer threads 

 of the cocoon were loose but the inner ones were 

 firmer and more closely woven. Here it rested in 

 the ground till the time came for the adult wasp 

 to appear. It then pushed of¥ a little lid at one 

 end of its silken home, and out of this brown 

 cocoon came a handsome blue-black metallic wasp. 

 By means of its front legs and mandibles it makes 

 its way out of the earth and flies about in the 

 sunshine, visiting flowers, and burying its head 

 among the nectar-yielding flowers of marigold, etc., 

 of our gardens, or on Eucalyptus and Leptospermum 

 (tea tree) of our bush. 



The wasp parasite is DiscoUa (Plate 22, Figs. 10, 

 II, 12.) 



Observations on a Small Brown Scarab. 



(Scltala pruinosa.) 



Late in September, whilst digging in our garden 

 w^e came across scores of the larvae of this scarab. 

 They were, as a rule, from 6 to 9 inches below the 

 surface of the ground, most of them being snugly 

 coiled up in tiny cavities in the soil which they had 

 apparently made by a wriggling movement. These 

 grubs measured about if inches; they were of a 

 greyish white colour with head and jaws of brown- 

 ish red. Three pairs of long, horny legs on the 

 first three segments of the body; in fact, it was a 

 typical lamellicorn larva. 



About six weeks after the first time we saw the 



