thistles close to the sea, on a rock called Durdle Door at Lul- 

 worth Cove. In one of the Halicti I found a pupa so exactly 

 at the apex of the abdomen, that I mistook it for an appen- 

 dage, and killed the bee, otherwise I should liave bred the 

 imago, as it was nearly matured. My Halictophagus seemed 

 unable to run in the net, its feet being entangled in the same 

 manner as those of Elenchus, which was the cause, I have 

 little doubt, of the tarsi being broken in my specimen. 



" All the Strepsiptera appear to be short-lived, for the Ha- 

 lictophagus died in the evening soon after I arrived at the inn. 



" I remember finding, a few years ago, a larva in Halictus 

 4!-guttatus? which I took in the New Forest in April." 



It is unnecessary to point out the differences between Sty- 

 lops {pi. 226.), Elenchus (pi. 385.), and Halictophagus: this 

 splendid discovery of Mr. Dale's, which adds a fourth genus 

 to the remarkable order Strepsiptera, if not the most curious, 

 is, I think, by far the most interesting of the whole, from the 

 antennae being rayed as in some of the Hymenoptera {Cera- 

 phron Halidayi^ pi. 249. and the males of Eulophus, ^j/. 133, 1.), 

 or rather lamellated like the club of the antennse in the Melo- 

 lonthidae, and likewise from the greater number of the con- 

 spicuous nervures in the wings ; notwithstanding these decided 

 charactei's, we are still unable to find the slightest affinity be- 

 tween this and the other orders. 



In describing Stylops in 1828, I stated that the third joint 

 of the antenna? was merely elongated into a lobe, and that they 

 were 6-jointed ; and I am now fully borne out in my opinion 

 by the structure of those of Halictophagus. I find that Mr. 

 Westwood has been pleased to observe, that I was not the 

 first to discover that the pseudelytra were attached to the me- 

 sothorax*. However that may be, I was the first, I believe, 

 who proved it ; and if Mons. Latreille did entertain an opinion 

 that the appendages were elytra, it is far from clear in xki^Hegne 

 Animal, and in the 'Families Naturelles he states that the 

 prebalancers are inserted on the sides of the prothorax. Mr. 

 Kirby, misled by Mr. Bauer's drawing, imagined that they 

 were attached to the coxae of the anterior legs, as represented 

 in the Plate he refers to ; indeed they are so placed, that with- 

 out dissecting the Stylops, it would be utterly impossible from 

 a dead specimen to ascertain to what part they were attached. 



I take this opportunity of adding, that Mr. Templeton in 

 examining the nest of Bombiis mnscorum^ found a specimen of a 

 Stylops very similar to Elenchus Walker i, if it be not the same, 

 the 7th or 8th of last August in the neighbourhood of Belfast, 

 which induces him to think it may be a parasite of that bee. 



The Plant is Tragopogon porrij'oliiis (Purple Goat' s-beard). 



* Mr. Westwood says that I claim the discovery of the attacliment of the 

 pseudelytra to the mesothorax ; in this he is not quite right ; I said, '• it has been 

 my good fortune to prove that the appendages are anterior wings or elytra." 

 Vol. V. p. 226 a. 



