59 



Epyris, wliieli Avas now quite tame, wedged her prov between 

 loose pieces of soil, but not hiding it from view, left it to look 

 for a nesting place; she examined several holes or ledges and 

 finally selected a spot under a small piece of soil. During- 

 this hunt she returned once to her prey ; now she seized it as 

 before and carried it in a rather circuitous fashion towards the 

 selected spot,- but here, on account of the steep and crumbling 

 nature of the ground, could make no headway, and so with 

 my assistance she disa})peared with her ])urd('n bcncaTh a ])iece 

 of soil. On digging in this place some minutes later J foniid 

 the Gonocephalum an inch or more in the ground and the 

 Epyris a little further in the soil. The egg had not yet been 

 laid. 



On November 15 on a sugar plantation near Honolulu T 

 unearthed a Gonocephalum larva which had a small Epyvifi 

 grub feeding upon it. 



The wasp seems to form a sort of coll wUnw its ])ar:i- 

 lyzed prey and completes her work with laying a ])early white 

 egg upon her victim. The egg (Fig. 2) is about .70 nun. long 

 and is glued for its length along the middle of the 4th seg- 

 ment; it is slightly curved along the line of appression, hai-dly 

 three times as long as thick, and slightly lu-oader and blunter 

 at the head end, which, however, points towards the posterior 

 extremity of the body of its host. The latter lies on its baek 

 in a more or less arcdicd ])osition. The egg hatcdies in about 

 ■1 1/2 days, the larva crawling out to segment 5, conunences to 

 feed on that segment; it is successful in penetrating or draw- 

 ing nourishment through the tough integument of the beetle 

 grub, so that it soon ac(|uii'('s a yellowish white coldv. In one 

 case T found bn, Epyris egg fixed along the side of the body at 

 al)Out its middle length. The grub hatched and although its 

 host was dead, managed to feed to maturity on it. It does not 

 seem probable that the mother Epyris pierces the integument of 

 her prey at the point where she lays the egg, so as to facilitate 

 the feeding of the issuing grub; she selects the -Ith ventral 

 segment as a phice for ovi])osiiiou lic(';iii>e it ]M-otects the egg 



