I'.m.] ]57 



receptacle of a capitulum of a hawkweed, Hieraciui/i horecde {■=sabau- 

 dum). Mr. Falconer placed the puparium alone in a tube cloKed with 

 cotton-wool, and from it emerged, towards the end of June 1919, the 

 Staphylinid, determined by Dr. Sharp as Ilomalota trinotuta Kr., (J • 

 The puparium was examined by Dr. Keilin, and pronounced to be almost 

 certainl}^ that of a small Anthomyild, probably a species of dhortopliila 

 or Phorbia ; or if not an Anthomyiid, then possibly a Tryjwtid, but not 

 an Agromyzid. The puparium was unavoidably broken up in the process 

 of examination, and unfortunately I omitted to take note beforehand of 

 the nature of the hole by which the beetle emerged. Mr. Falconer 

 informs me that it was a clean-edged split, not an excision, and sitviated 

 laterally at the end of the puparium. Perhaps it was the noi-mal line of 

 weakness along which the puparium is opened by the emerging fly. 

 A single case of this kind cannot be taken as proving the Ilomalota to, 

 be a parasite, for it may have entered the puparium as a mere predator, 

 or (if the puparium did not contain a living nymph) as a scavenger, 

 But against this must be set the fact that the puparium was not moved 

 from the wool-stoppered tube, nor was the woollen wad removed, between 

 the end of September 1918 and the end of June 1919, at which time the 

 beetle emerged : and that no other insect came out of the j^uparium 

 besides the Somalota. 



University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. 

 May I7th, 1920. 



NOTES ON THE LIFE-HISTOEY OF THRIXAX MIXTA Kl. 

 (FEMORALIS OF CAMERON). 



BT T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.R.S. 



On May 29th, 1919, Mr. Champion sent me some sawfly larvae 

 taken at Albury (Surrey) on Asplenium filix-mas. These soon fed up 

 on A. JiUx-mas and disappeared for hibernation into some rough cork 

 provided for them. 



Some of these emerged on April 13th, 1920, and were pronounced 

 hy Mr. Morice to be Thrinax mixta KL, of whose life-history not much 

 is recorded. I placed some with as expanded a piece of the frond of 

 A. filix-mas as I could find. 



There were both males and females so placed, but I saw no pairing or 

 egg-laying. I presume pairing occurred, as where the females lay parthe- 

 nogenetic eggs, the}^ begin to do so as soon as the food-plant is offered to 

 them. I watched them for some time with(nit seeing any eggs laid. 



