118 



Occu/rrence of a Liodes new to Britain. 



LiODES CASTANEA, Herbd (Tetratoma) ; Ericlison, Ins. Deutsch., 1. Ait., 

 3 Bd. 91. 5. 



I have detected this fine species among some unexamined Coleoptera recently 

 taken at Eannoch, in Perthshire, by Mr. D. Sharp. It is 1^ lin. in length, ovate, 

 rather flattish, shining ; black on the upper side, the thorax and elytra margined with 

 pitchy -red ; the legs and under side reddish-brown, and the antennae reddish-brown, 

 with the seventh and three apical joints pitchy. The thorax is veiy delicately and 

 almost obsoletely punctured, and the elytra have the striae composed of coarse and 

 somewhat irregular double rows of punctures, with the interstices more finely (but 

 still strongly) punctured. There is also a deeply impressed single stria on each side of 

 the suture, narrowest at the apex, but gradually widening as it approaches the 

 BCutellar region, where it becomes obsolete. 



The longer oval, and flattish form of this insect, added to its thin legs, and the 

 coarse and numerous punctures on the elytra, at once distinguish it from oui' other 

 species. 



It occurs to me that it may be as well to give the diagnostic characters 

 between L. axillaris, Gyll., and L. humeralis, Fab., (both of which have a red 

 shoulder spot), as the former is included by Mr. G. E. Crotch in his " Catalogue 

 of British Coleoptera." L. axilh/t^is is rather smaller than the latter species, some- 

 what longer, and more ovate. Its elytra are not clothed with the short pubescence 

 so evident in Jiiimeralis, and the punctuation is more distinct in the striae, and not 

 so close in the interstices. In the male, also, the anterior tarsi are not so widened 

 at the base, and the hinder tibiae are not widened inwards, or toothed at the apex. 

 It must be remembered, however, that in the female of humeralis the anterior tarsi 

 and hinder tibiae are simple ; and that in the male of that species the elytra are 

 shining, with the striae more coarsely punctured, and the interstices much more 

 strongly and widely punctured, than in the female. — E. C. Rye. 



Discovery of the larva and ptipa of RMpiphorus paradoxus. — On 'opening a cell 

 contained in a nest of Vespa vulgaris on Saturday morning last, I fortunately dis- 

 covered a larva of the above parasite sticking like a leech to the spun-up larva of 

 the wasp, which, in the course of the following forty-eight hours, it entirely con- 

 sumed, with the exception of the skin and mandibles, although it had made 

 comparatively little progress in the work of destruction at the time I opened the 

 cell. From other cells in the same nest I obtained pupae of the parasite, as well as 

 specimens of the perfect insect, — S. Stone, Brighthampton, Witney, Aug. 2drd, 1864. 



A Lepidopterous imago and ichneumons hred out of one larva. — Having read 

 the note in the August number of this Magazine, respecting the development of an 

 imago after the escape of parasites, I thought it might not be amiss if I confirmed 

 the possibility of such an event by relating a similar instance which has occurred 

 within my own experience. At one time I was breeding Acronycta psi from the 

 larva ; some little time before the transformation of one of the caterpillars into the 

 pupa state, two larvae of a small Ichneumon, apparently the same as that infesting 

 Pieris hrassicoi, came out of it, spun their littlo cocoons, and afterwards appeared in 



