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XXVIII. On the liabits cnul (ijfiiiities of Apocrypta 

 cnid Sjcophag'a, of the llymenopterous 

 family Agaonida3, xvith descri])tion of a 

 new species of Apocrypta from the firjs of 

 Ficus Sycomori of Egypt. 



By Sir Sidney Smith Saunders, C.M.G. 



[Read November 6th, 1878.] 



Dr. Coquerel has described and figured three very 

 remarkable insects, which he named Apocrypta parndoxa, 

 A. perplexa and Sycocrypta coeca, in Giieriu's " Revue 

 de Zoologie" for 1855 (2e serie, tome vii. 365 and 462), 

 obtained from the figs of Ficus terragena in the Island of 

 Mauritius. Conceiving these insects to be in an imma- 

 ture condition, he sought for them repeatedly during 

 several successive months and always found them in the 

 same condition, exhi]:)iting the three types by hundreds 

 mixed up together. They were all destitute of eyes or 

 ocelli, whereof he could find no trace whatever (auciui 

 vestige), nor of Avings or elytra; neither was he able to 

 discover any maxilla3 or palpi, although armed with 

 powerful mandibles. 



Finding that these strange beings retained the same 

 forms for a long 2:)eriod, and observing in one of them a 

 certain resemblance to the Scleroderma of Latreille (which 

 the Sycocrypta, in the structure of its head and thorax, 

 serves to siiggest, although essentially differing, not only 

 in the antennse, legs and abdomen, but more especially in 

 not being aculeate), Dr. Coquerel considered them to 

 belong to the Heterogyna of Latreille, upon whose supposed 

 affinities he comments; speaking of these insects as being, 

 in his opinion, " les femelles aveugles et apteres de quelque 

 male aile et inconnu;" and as "etranges parasites, con- 

 daranes a ime obscurite eternelle, renfermes qu'ils sont 

 dans une cavite close de toutes parts, prives d'aillcurs dcs 

 organes de la vue." 



In company with them he also found a considerable 

 number of supposed Chalcidites, Avhich, as he observes, 

 " selon toute apparence s'etaient developpes a leurs 

 depens," and living promiscuously (pele-mclc) with the 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1878. — TART IV. (dEC.) 



