COEYLOPHID.E. 



METAMORPHOSIS AND LIFE-HISTORY OF THE 

 CORYLOPHID.E. 



(Plate A.) 



We are indebted for all that is known of the life-historj- and metamorphosis of 

 the Corylo})hid(e to the researches of the late M. Ferris, of Mont de Marsan. In 

 the ' Auuales de la S. Ent. de France,' 1852, jd. 587, he gives a detailed account of 

 the larva and pupa of Orthoperus ; and in an essay, published in the ' Memoires de 

 la Societe Pioj-ale des Sciences de Liege,' t. x., 1855, p. '270, &c., he describes at 

 great length and with great perspicuity the anatomy, as well as the outward form, 

 of the various stages of ArthroUps. He also adds many valuable observations on 

 their habits and mode of life, and in plate v. of the same work gives excellent figures 

 of the larva and pupa with many dissections ; and, since in this part of the world 

 we have no opportunity of making such investigations, I shall, in their proper 

 place, transcribe almost verbatim M. Ferris's descriptions. With regard to their 

 mode of life, M. Ferris seems to think, although he mentions it in a conjectural 

 manner, that these animals are more or less carnivorous (a fact asserted in the 

 ' Fourth Report of U. S. Entomological Commission,' p. 97, in the case of a kindred 

 genus Sericoderus), and I think that the anatomy of the mouth in all the tribes of 

 the Corylophidie except Saciina fully corroborates this idea. In the Saciina alone 

 the mandibles are of a feeble character, but even among them the single lobe of 

 the maxilla is of a decidedly carnivorous type. It seems more than probable that 

 the food of the Coriilophidie is of a varied description, and that M. Ferris, judging 

 from the condition in which he found the larvae, as well as the perfect insect — i.e. 

 under the decaying bark of trees — is right in supposing their nourishment to consist, 

 in part at least, of detritus, or of the excrement left by x_ylophagous animals. The 

 observations of M. Ferris refer especially to the Saciind, and throughout that tribe 

 the shape and peculiar articulation of the mandibles, and the fact that their edges 

 do not traverse each other, but close together after the fashion of pincers, combine 

 to give these organs the action of a spoon — a very necessary power if M. Ferris's 

 conjecture as to their food is correct. 



LARVA OF AETHROLIFS. 



L. c. 2 mm. — Body elliptic, depressed, greyish-white above, paler beneath, 

 upper sm-face covered with robust, truncate, rufescent hairs, either cylindrical or 

 inversely conical, longest on the back and sides, interspersed with a few longer 

 hairs. 

 Stigmata, nine on each side ; of these two are on the mesothoracic segment, and two 



on each abdominal segment. 



