162 
Mr. W. Sells’s Remarks 
had been inclosed within the nut in its larva state. The question 
then arises, had it entered the nut whilst a small larva through the 
smaller aperture noticed above, or was the latter intentionally 
made by the discoverer of the insect, and was not the larva 
hatched from an egg deposited through the fleshy pulp of the 
fruit, and within the nut, whilst still very young, by the parent 
insect? I am induced from analogy to adopt the latter opinion. 
We are not informed of the precise circumstances under which 
the insect was found, whether it was discovered laying on the 
ground after the fall of the fruit and shedding of the seeds, or 
whether it was found thus endeavouring to escape on cutting 
open the fruit, of course before the seeds were shed. This might 
tend to solve the difficulty ; but in the meantime I venture the 
above as the most plausible and probable conjecture. 1 have 
only to add, that the only other species of Upis whose proceed- 
ings have been noticed, is Upis ceramboides, a Swedish insect, 
which feeds upon the fungi upon trees. 
XXXI. Remarks on the above paper, by W. Sells, Esq., 
M. E. S. 
I have in my cabinet the pericarpium of Barbadoes’-pride ( Poin - 
ciana pulcherrima ) , one of the most beautiful flowering shrubs in 
the West Indies ; the seed-vessel is, like Cassia fistula, a lomen- 
tum, each seed being separated from the adjoining one by a 
strong ligneous partition. Upon opening it, I was surprised to 
find each loculamentum occupied by a species of Bruchus, all the 
seeds but one having been entirely eaten. The insects were 
severally enveloped in a coccoon, and were all in the state of 
imago but one, which had perished while in pupa. At what 
period of its growth the seed-pod had been attacked it is impos- 
sible to say ; but it seems to me to be very probable, that in this 
and similar instances, where the female insect has to deposit its 
eggs in a fruit or seed-vessel that is much advanced, it may, in 
the resources of its instinct, be led to prepare the way for the 
working of its ovipositor, by first breaking open the surface with 
its mandibles. 
Any infonnation which it is in my power to afford you respect- 
ing the tree which bears the nut containing the insect in question 
is, I regret to say, rather of a negative character ; as at present 
I am better able to say what it is not than what it is. You 
