THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 401 
researches of Dr. Coquerel. Here the three species figured 
are said to be ‘condemned to eternal darkness’ in the central 
regions of figs. These figs are the fruit of Ficus terragena, 
and are unfit for human food. Dr. Coquerel found the three 
species (the figures of which are given above, copied from the 
plate in the ‘Revue et Magasin de Zoologie, 2nd series, 
vol. vii. pp. 365 and 422) in abundance in the interior of 
these figs, together with great numbers of a fourth species, 
which he named Chalcis? explorator, and which he believed 
to be parasitic on the other three species. However, he did 
not ascertain it to be so, but merely observed that the four 
species were mingled together, and he had previously seen 
the explorator flying about the outside of the figs. The other 
three species, he observes, are remarkably inactive: when 
disturbed they roll themselves together and remain motion- 
less; they have no eyes, no ocelli, no palpi, no maxille, no 
wings; but have powerful mandibles. Dr. Coquerel mentions 
that they have analogy with Scleroderma contracta, and 
supposes that the males are winged and unknown, and may 
‘ have their place next to Scleroderma. Scleroderma has no 
near affinity with the Bethylid, and has been supposed by 
some to belong to the Mutillida, and by others to be the 
female of Myzine: it has some resemblance to the female 
Australian and South American Thynni, and by these con- 
nections the primitive and semichaotic forms, discovered by 
Dr. Coquerel, expand into the numerous and powerful tribe 
of aculeate Hymenoptera, surpassing other insects in intellect, 
of which the wasp and the bee are most familiar examples, 
though a great part control other orders of insects, by using 
them as food for their young. Scleroderma seems to have 
more affinity with Typhlopone, the ‘ worker’ of Labidus, and 
with Dichthadia glaberrima, the supposed female of Dorylus ; 
and thereby the multitudinous tribe of ants, whose economy 
is so remarkable, emerges from the blind and radical 
Apocrypte and Sycocrypte, the perpetual dwellers in the 
interior of figs. But the affinity of these two genera to the 
Chalcidiz is more evident, and appears by several connecting 
links in the Agaonide; and thus the near relations to the 
general ancestors of the thousands, and perhaps tens of 
thousands, of the Chalcidiz species, the tribe being con- 
sidered in unity, are cradled in figs. The Chalcis ? explorator 
