THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 73 



In the chapter on social economy a great deal of useful 

 and interesting information is arranged and combined ; and 

 this is the best part of the work. The figures of the wasps 

 are far from satisfactory ; those of the nests are better. But 

 how comes it that the wasp-parasites are altogether omitted? 

 Xenos and llhipiphorus, besides many of our Diptera, have 

 no other home. As well might a historian of bees omit the 

 cuckoos, as the historian of wasps omit the parasites and 

 inquilines which are so inseparably intertwined with their 

 life-history, and form one of its most interesting features. 



Edwaed Newman. 



Life-history of Acidalia bisetata. — The eg^ is laid in 

 July, on the leaves of Leontodon taraxacum (dandelion), and 

 the young larvae emerge in the beginning of August: the 

 feed during the remainder of the autumn with considerable 

 avidity, but grow very slowly ; and throughout they winter 

 they continue to nibble the food-plant, without showing any 

 positive signs of hybernation : in March they begin to feed 

 again more freely, but still increase very slowly in size, and 

 towards the end of April they attain their full size, having 

 been feeding more or less for nine months : they then rest on 

 their food-plant, in a straight and rigid position, attached by 

 the claspers only, and at an angle of about thirty degrees 

 with the object on which they are resting : if annoyed they 

 fall from the food-plant and feign death, assuming the pot- 

 hook posture so observable in the larva of Abraxas grossu- 

 lariata and other Geometers under similar cirumstances and 

 remain a long time perfectly without motion. The head is 

 exserted and prone ; it is scarcely so wide as the 2nd seg- 

 ment ; into this it is never even partially received: it is 

 slightly notched on the crown, and rough like shagreen, and 

 emits several small but stiff bristles : the body is very long 

 and leach-like ; it gradually increases in size from the head 

 to the 12lh segment; it is transversely wrinkled, each seg- 

 ment being divided by deep furrows into six or eight sections 

 six being the number on the anterior segments, eight on the 

 remainder ; it has on each side a very conspicuous dilated 

 skinfold ; every part of the body emits scattered short stiff 



