isTs.] 175 



Lichtenstein, of fastening to bees. Tho fact that it can nourish on honey, though it 

 does not appear to do so freely, would also indicate that it breeds in the nests of 

 solitary bees. Nevertheless, in the slender thighs and tho caudal and abdominal 

 characters it agrees more nearly with Epicauta, and in the stage following the first 

 moult the legs are still quite long and the general aspect much like tho carabidoid 

 stage of that genus. I should not be surprised, therefore, if Cantharis also nourished 

 on locust eggs, and I hope that my friends in the South of France will not fail to make 

 the test. 



What is known of the Lakval Habits of other Meloid G-enera. 



Mylahris, Fabr. {nee Geoff.), according to V. Mayot, is much less prolific tlian 

 any IMeloids so far observed. The egg is 2.5 mm. long and half as wide, "with a 

 tolerably thick shell, and the embryo more fully bent within it. The triungulin has 

 many of the characters of Epicauta, judging from the published description {Ann. 

 Soc. Ent. de Fr,, 1876, Bull. p. cxcvi), which is, however, not sufficiently detailed as 

 to the trophi. I doubt not that the genus will be found to infest locust eggs. 



Soria, Fabr., from what little is known of it, would seem to have a similar 

 partial parasitism to Meloe, but on Carpenter-bees. 



Tetraonyx, Latr., was found by Guurin-Meneville in places frequented by 

 Humble-bees. 



The eggs of Apalus, Fabr., as well as its triungulin, are said to resemble thos-e 

 of Meloe. 



Zonitis, Fabr., is known to develop in the cells of Osmia and Anthidium, and 

 to have a coarctate larva much like that of Sitaris. 



EXQ.UIRY ABOUT PLANT LICE. 

 BY JULES LICHTEXSTEIN. 



Having been already for eight or nine years very much engaged in 

 observations on the biology of the grape root-lice {Phylloxera vasta- 

 irix), and other Aphidians of the same or allied genera, I expected to 

 bo soon in a position to express some new ideas on their metamor- 

 phoses ; but, having lately described, as not yet knowii, the sexuated 

 forms of Schizoneura corni, F., and Vacima dryophila, Heyden, a 

 Prench entomological paper advises me that the English naturalist 

 Huxley, has, about twenty years ago, already spoken of the female 

 Vacuna in the Transactions of the Linnean Society.* 



As it is quite impossible, in present times, for any man to know 

 all that has been published, in all countries, on any subject, I have 

 come to the conclusion to send you a short notice on tho actual state 

 of my observations, and to ask your readers if they are already 

 aware of any similar observations on the same insects. 



I notice the following stages of life in Pliylloxera quercus, a species 

 in which I could best follow the complete cycle of existence. A large 

 mother louse appears at the beginning of May, and lays small eggs 

 under the leaves of a kind of oak very common in our parts (Mout- 



* " On the agamic reproduction and morphology of Aphis," Trans. Linn. Soc, xxii (pt. 3, 

 1858), pp. 193—230, pis. ;JU-40. 



