266 [November, 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE-HISTORY OF METHOCA ICHNEU- 

 MONOIDES, Latr. 



BY H. G. AND R. J. CHAMPION. 



During the past summer we have given a good deal of time to 

 observing the habits of this Mutillid, as we had heard that it was 

 suspected of being parasitic on larvae of species of Cicindela, and 

 thought it would be of interest to discover as much as we could of its 

 life history. Not until most of the data had been collected did we 

 find out that the work had already been carried out by two Swedish 

 investigators, Adlerz and Bouwman, whose results, as far as w T e know 

 them, agree closely with ours [cf. Trans. Ent. Soc. Loud., 1911, 

 p. 452]. Unfortunately, their papers are written in Swedish, whilst 

 the reference quoted does little more than mention the facts. How- 

 ever, confirmatory evidence is not without its value, and as we have 

 reason to believe that several Hymenopterists have patiently watched 

 the wingless $ of Methoca for hours together without observing any- 

 thing of interest, we feel justified in writing this note. Of course, 

 our experiments are by no means completed, but as in all probability 

 neither of us will be in a position to carry them through, at least as 

 far as breeding out the imagines, we describe them now as far as they 

 have gone. 



The £ of the insect in question is rare, in fact we have not yet 

 seen it alive, but we were always able, on a favourable day, through- 

 out August to secure one or more $ $ running hurriedly about 

 amongst the heather on the sandy parts of the commons near here. 

 When alarmed, as they readily are, they "freeze," and are then only 

 too easily pased over. The great variation in size, length from 4 to 

 9 mm. is remarkable.* 



Directly we began to watch them in the field, we saw that when they 

 were not running about apparently aimlessly, they were busily engaged 

 in filling in the burrows of large Cicindela larvae with the shrivelled 

 corollas and little twigs of Calluna, as well as with grains of sand, 

 small fibrous masses of humus, etc. From the fact that these 

 burrows were partly in the favourite haunts of C. ca/m/pestris and 

 partly in those of C. sylvdtica, we have every reason to believe that 

 these two species are attacked indifferently, as was observed by the 

 Swedish workers. Excavations of burrows so filled revealed a paralysed 

 larva. 



* In Saunders' Hymenoptera Aculeata the limits 6-9 mm. are given for the ?. 



