60 



better there than elsewhere. Presently the position of the 

 larva is reversed, for though always feeding at segment 5 it 

 now lies head to head with its host. It was after this change 

 of j^osition (Fig. 4) that I found a shrivelled exuvial cap or 

 moult skin glued just dorsad to the end of the body. A little 

 later on there is a second moult. At the end of three days, it 

 is about 4 nnn. long, proportionately stout and more maggot- 

 like than in most Fossoria ; clearly segmented and of a dirtv 

 yellowish white color. It is closelv fixed for its ventral length 

 to the yet living Gonoceplialum larva by a sticky substance. 

 The third moult takes place in prol)al)ly less than a day l)eforc 

 the larva becomes full fed. It is now armed with a much 

 larger and stouter pair of mandibles with which it bites a good- 

 sized hole through the fifth ventral ])late of host, insci-ts its 

 head and fore part of the body through this aperture, and pro- 

 truding tlierefroni at right angles (Fig. 6) eats out the interior, 

 first taking one end and then the other. The beetle grul) suc- 

 cumbs at the beginning of this crude operation and when en- 

 tirely eaten out is reduced to a shrivelled, transparent brown- 

 ish shell. x\s in other fossorial wasp larvae, it is most active 

 in the last instar; it may squirm vigorously and with the aid 

 of a clear yellow fluid rid itself of the three shrunken m<iult 

 skins, each one telescoped inside the other to form a shallow 

 concave wrinkled disk of yellowish color. The larva becomes 

 full fed at the end of four or five days when it is about 1 mm. 

 long by 2.5 mm. thick l)elow the middle, fat and glistening, 

 with little in the way of scallops or folds ; it has a relativelv 

 small head armed with stout, dark-tipped mandibles and behind 

 the latter, long protruding mouth-parts. Its posterior extrem- 

 ity heretofore rather bluntly rounded is now produced int(» 

 a sort of nipple. It is mainly a pretty salmon ]unk color, 

 peppered with white fat-bodies, Avhich however are Jacking 

 along the ventral line, while the extremities and lateral folds 

 are more glassy and clearer. It is well to draw attention to 

 the four pairs of larval mandibles, representing the four in- 

 stars (Fig. 5, a — d) ; thev are dra^^^^ to the same scale, the 



