NOTES ON IIYMENOPTERA. 69 



phorns question, and have to haul down ray flag; the 

 Hhipijohorus is a true parasite; I iiave traced it from the 

 egg to the perfect insect." Nothing could be more satisfac- 

 tory than that he himself should have traced it, and nothing 

 more o^raceful than the candid acknowledo-ment of his own 

 erroneous conclusions. Mr. Murray was only a few days in 

 advance of another and a more fortunate observer; Dr. Alger- 

 non Chapman was working in the same field ; he also ob- 

 tained a nest of Vespa vulgaris, and, as he informs us in 

 his admirable paper published in the Annals and Magazine 

 for October last, that he easily ascertained that the larva 

 of JRliipipliorus eats that of the wasp after the latter has 

 spun up. 



Mr. Chapman tells us that he failed to find any eggs of 

 the parasite, and it will be seen from what follows that where 

 the eggs are deposited is not known. He ascertained, how- 

 ever, a point in the history of Mhipiphorus that had never 

 previously even been conjectured ; he discovered the first 

 stage of the young parasite after leaving the egg, which 

 proved that the histoiy of Rhipiphorus is parallel to that of 

 3feloe and Stylops in its earliest stage ; the larva is then a 

 little black hexapod, exceedingly minute, and having a tri- 

 angular head with a pair of three-jointed antennae, with legs 

 very like those of the larva of 3Ieloe, the tibiae ending in two 

 or three claws; each abdominal segment has a shoi't lateral 

 spine, pointing backwards, the last segment terminating in a 

 large double sucker. This little larva finds a wasp grub, and 

 piercing a hole in its skin makes its way into its interior. 



At w^hat precise period of the growth of the wasp grub 

 that of the parasite enters it has not been observed; it was 

 however ascertained that it remains there until the larva of 

 the wasp is full grown and has spun itself up in the cell ; 

 Mr. Chapman discovered it in such a full grown larva. At 



