THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 167 



minute salamander, with its legs distended on the honey. 

 Experiments were also tried with the primitive larvas of the 

 blister-beetle (Cantharis vesicatoria), which could not be 

 induced to feed on the eggs of Vespa or Polistes, nor on 

 simple honey, beyond a few feeble attempts ; but eventually 

 they accepted the honey-bag of the hive-bee as an available 

 substitute for their ordinary food, affixing themselves to tiiis 

 and thriving thereon. In one instance also a compound of 

 honey and young Polistes larvae proved equally successful. 

 These primitive larvae are of a brownish black colour, with 

 the second and third thoracical, and the first abdominal 

 segments, more or less pallid, having the usual long caudal 

 setae and triunguiculate tarsal claws. After the laj^se of nine 

 days they changed to the secondary form as aforesaid. Three 

 of these attained the third stage, having still well-developed 

 legs {pattes assez bien conforuiees), but with no indication of 

 eyes, coinciding in this respect with those of AJeloe and 

 Sitaris. After a time, becoming restless as adults, they were 

 placed upon some earth, wnerein they hastily buried them- 

 selves, for the supposed purpose of completing their trans- 

 formations, but contrary, as il would seem, to their accustomed 

 habits. Here they appear to have perished, being no longer 

 discoverable; their death being attributed to insufficient 

 moisture. From the localities frequented by this Cantharis, 

 where the burrows of Halicti also abound, M. Lichtenstein 

 considers it probable that the larvae of the former are reared 

 in the cells of these bees ; but, in such case, they could not 

 quit those abodes to undergo their ultimate metamorphoses 

 in the earth. 



Spiders in the Bark of Trees, — Our attention has been 

 called to a new trap-door spider from South Africa, M'hich 

 forms its nest in the bark of trees, recently described and 

 figured by the Rev. O. P. Cambridge in the 'Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History' (November), under the name 

 of Moggridgea Dyeri. The nests, however, figured by Mr. 

 Pickard Cambridge, differ essentially from two which were 

 exhibited at the July meeting of this Society ; these being 

 wholly imbedded in the solid bark, and having a hinged lid 

 closely resembling the siurounding parts of the cuticle itself, 

 as if retained in sitti ; whereas, according to a fuller 

 description of the nests submitted to Mr. Pickard Cambridge, 



