iqii.] Gravely & Maulik : Tree-haunting Neuroptera. 109 



might be supposed ; and if these larvae feed, like other Myrnieleons, 

 upon ants, the covering of the anterior part of the body must be 

 quite sufficient in itself to render them inconspicuous to any 

 victim approaching from in front — for to an ant the rest of the 

 body would appear so much foreshortened as to be scarcely notice- 

 able. And it is very natural that in India an ant-eating insect 

 should take to a life upon tree-trunks, up and down very many of 

 which hosts of ants are perpetually streaming, numbers having their 

 nests beneath the bark. 



Redtenbacher (1884, pp. 544-5) divides Myrmeleonid larvae 

 into two main classes: — A, those which walk forwards and do not 

 construct pits ; and B , those that construct pits. And he subdivides 

 these according to structure, the latter being divided according to 

 their method of progression also. Although the larvae of Myrme- 

 leon contractus would clearly fall into class A, they are distin- 

 guished from all of the four groups of this class by the structure of 

 the ninth segment. And of the three groups in class B they agree 

 in structure (apart from a minor difference in the armature of the 

 mandibles, which is referred to below) only with the Myrmeleon 

 group, in spite of the fact that they always walk forwards and 

 never backwards. 



Thus in the classification of Myrmeleonid larvae habits may 

 be misleading; and in this case at least the structure of the eighth 

 and ninth segments is a safer guide to identity and may be relied on 

 with absolute security. The larvae of Myrmeleon contractus differ 

 however from all the Myrmeleonid larvae described by Redten- 

 bacher in the much greater proportional breadth of the body, and 

 from all the Myrmeleons in having the third tooth on each man- 

 dible slightly shorter instead of longer than the second. In the 

 latter character they tend to resemble Palpares and some species of 

 Acanthaclistis among free-living forms, and Creagris and Myrmeca- 

 lurus among pit-makers ; but from all of these they differ in that 

 the third tooth is longer and not shorter than the first. 



The pupa resembles in general characters that of the ' ' For- 

 mica-leo" {Myrmeleon formicarius of Hagen and M. europaeus of 

 Redtenbacher) described by Reaumur (1742, pp. 368 and 373, 

 xxxiv, figs. 3-5). 



IvlST OF PAPERS CONSULTED. 



Those marked with an asterisk contain descriptions of larvae from the 



Oriental Region. 



1742. Reaumur, M. de — "Mem. pour servir a I'Histoire des In- 



sectes." Vol. vi, pp. 333-386, pi. xxxii-xxxiv. 

 1827, Guilding, L. — [On Ascalaphus macleayanus.] Trans. Linn. 



Soc, XV, 1824-5 (1827), pp. 509-512. 

 1833. Perchero7t, A. — " Note sur la larve du Myrmeleon libellu- 



loides." Mag. Zool. des Annees 1831 a 1838, Section 3, 



classe IX ; 4 pp., pi. 59. 



