THE ENTOMOLOGIST. o343 



examining these attentively I found them fourteen in number, 

 and all adhering tenaciously to the body of the Lithobius by 

 means of the extremity of the abdomen : it seems as though 

 each had endeavoured to wriggle out of the living domicile 

 which it had been inhabiting without the consent of the land- 

 lord, and had been suddenly arrested in its departure, and 

 held fast by the tail, after its head and shoulders, body and 

 wings, had fully emerged into open daylight. The pupae 

 were perfectly naked, without cocoon or covering of any 

 kind, and exposed in a manner that admitted, nay more, 

 that seemed to invite, investigation : they all protruded from 

 the body of the victim in one direction and at an angle of 

 35 or 40 degrees ; their backs were outwards, their faces 

 towards the ventral surface of the Lithobius, the legs of 

 which seemed to have assumed the rigor mortis in a futile 

 attempt to clasp this large family of unnatural offspring. The 

 colour of these creatures was ivory-white, contrasting strongly 

 with the rich ferruginous colour of the myriapod ; the eyes 

 alone were mahogany-brown, and there was a tendency to 

 transparency about the antenna-cases, the leg-cases and the 

 wing-cases. The appearance of this little company was very 

 strange to me ; their exact uniformity of position, their 

 equally exact correspondence in size and form, the con- 

 spicuously contrasted colour of their eyes, — all this, en- 

 hanced as it was by my utter ignorance of the existence of a. 

 parasite on Myriapoda, combined to render this sight one of 

 peculiar interest. When I had satisfied my first curiosity, 

 I gently laid the defunct Lithobius on damp blotting-paper, 

 covered him with a small counterpane of the same material, 

 and deposited him in a tin box, thus ensuring the delicate 

 Ichneumons against such an excess of drought or heat as 

 might possibly interfere with their progress to maturity. 

 Oftener than the day I examined my precious charge, and 

 on the 26th of August I found that the twenty-eiglit eyes 

 were changing from brown to black ; some of them were 

 already black : this was a tolerably certain sign that the 

 Ichneumons were still living : on the 27th black was ap- 

 pearing partially suffused over the thorax and body ; the 

 next day black became the predominant colour ; on the 29th 

 a red leg was liberated from its swathing envelope, and 

 waved itself lazily in the air for a moment, then subsiding 



