THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 235 
depositing eggs, they had burrowed into the earth and there 
remained, so that it became a question whether they do not 
hybernate in the ground, and lay their eggs in the spring, at 
a time when there would be a better supply than in the 
autumn, of eggs and larve of the Anthophora. Prof. West- 
wood said both sexes of Meloe violaceus were found in the 
spring; and suggested whether these had hybernated under- 
ground. Mr. Pascoe mentioned that near Narbonne he had 
once seen a dozen specimens of Meloe maialis impaled 
on Cactus opuntia, and as they were quite uninjured except 
by the spines of the Cactus, the impalement could not have 
been the work of shrikes. 
Anobium paniceum.—Mr. Dunning exhibited Anobium 
paniceum, both larva and imago, living in and consuming 
Cayenne pepper; and read the following uote respecting 
it: —“In Kirby and Spence (Introd. i. pp. 196, 199, ed. 1843) 
it is mentioned that Anobium paniceum has been known 
to consume Cayenne pepper. On the 5th April, 1847, 
Mr. W. W. Saunders exhibited to this Society a bottle of 
capsicum from Bombay, which was greatly infested by 
Lasioderma testaceum; and it is added when Kirby and 
Spence stated Cayenne pepper to be subject to the ravages 
of Anobium paniceum, that species was ‘ probably mistaken 
by them for the former insect, which it greatly resembles.’ 
(See Proc. Ent. Soc. 1847, p. viii.) It is clear that this 
passage means the reverse of what is said—that Lasioderma 
was mistaken for Anobium, not Anobium for Lasioderma. 
The authority for Kirby and Spence’s statement is Mr. 
Raddon, who, on the Ist of January, 1838, exhibited to 
this Society ‘a quantity of Cayenne pepper, in which a 
number of specimens of Anobium paniceum had been reared.’ 
(See Proceedings, p.1xi.) I have now the pleasure of exhibit- 
ing larve and beetles in Cayenne pepper, forwarded to 
me in August from Woolston, near Southampton; they were 
described as ‘ sent over in some Cayenne pepper, and, much 
to the disgust of the village grocer, they bred and multiplied, 
the beetles boring holes in the drawer in which the pepper 
was placed, previous to the discovery of the inmates. Not- 
withstanding the doubt expressed in 1847, I venture, in 
corroboration of Mr. Raddon’s observation, to exhibit these 
beetles as Anobium paniceuw.” 
