314 Sir S. S. Saunders on the habits and affinities 



aforesaid ; being met with, like the former, among the 

 viscid matter surrounding the seeds ("drupes"), as Avell as 

 within the same ("dans I'iuterieur des drupes elles-memes," 

 p. 367). 



These supposed parasitic associates were furnished with 

 eyes and Avings, and some of them had been seen hovering 

 about the figs in the first instance. How they were to 

 obtain their eventual liberation from such closed prison 

 without their blind victims being simultaneously emanci- 

 pated when the figs burst or decayed ; or how these latter 

 captives, condemned to perpetual durance and obscurity, 

 were to deposit their ova in other figs ; is not explained. 



Dr. Coquerel describes and figures this Chalcis ? {sic^ 

 under the name of C. explorator ; in whose wing the short 

 curvate vein emanating from the anterior margin (or more 

 precisely from the cubitus) shows a close affinity with 

 Blastophac/a; whereof one species (the B. Si/cornori) is 

 figured and described by Professor Westwood, together 

 Avith the allied genus Sf/cophac/a (of which S. crassipes 

 is the tvpe), in our Transactions for 1837 (Vol. II., 

 pp. 220^, 222, PL XX. fs. 4 and 5); but Coquerel's 

 insect difiers from Blastophaga in the structure of the 

 antennae, as well as in the length of the ovipositor, 

 which he describes as about twice the length of the 

 body; whereas it is very short in the latter, being less 

 than half as long as the abdomen. The mouth -parts 

 are not adverted to by Dr. Coquerel ; but in Blasto- 

 phaga the mandibles are furnished with a remarkable 

 appendage (Westwood, loc. cit. fig. 4, b — f), which is 

 not found in Si/cophaf/a, to which Coquerel's supposed 

 Chalcis is more closely allied in its antennas and ovi- 

 positor. 



AValker, in his " Notes on Chalcidice'' CPart IV. p. 60), 

 pronounces this to be an Idarnes, and repeats Coquerel's 

 figures Q){ Apocrypta and Sycocrypta ; speaking of these as 

 exhibiting the most aboriginal structure of the AgaonidcB, 

 which he characterizes in the aggregate as the most rudi- 

 mentary form of the Chalcidice. Pie subsequently refers 

 to Idar7ies as allied to Blastophax/a and Sycophaya, and 

 as resembling the latter in having " a long oviduct " 

 (p. 64). 



But Blastophaga (as the name implies) is not of 

 carnivorous habits; it is described by Gravenhorst as 

 piei'cing the germs of the fig with small round liolcs, the 

 interior of which germs is devoured by the larva), and 



