COLEOPTERA. — LAMPYRID.E. 253 



Meilzinsky published (Ann. Sc. Nat. vol. i.) a memoir upon an insect, 

 the larva of* which he found feeding voraciously upon snails (Helix 

 nemoralis). This larva (Jig. 26. 18. larva of the 5 ) is of a yellowish 

 colour, eight or nine lines long, and four or five broad ; its head is 

 armed with a pair of strong bifid jaws, and two short 2-jointed 

 antennse ; the body is 12-jointed, each of the three first segments 

 bearing a strong pair of articulated legs, and each of the eight follow- 

 ing segments furnished at the sides on the lower surface with two 

 conical fleshy tubercles, or false legs, and on the upper with two raised 

 bundles of hairs, forming a double series; the last segment is furcate, 

 and bears the anus and two larger bundles of hairs ; the former organ 

 is deflexed, and employed as an extra leg, and is of much service to 

 the insect when it endeavours to effect an entrance into the shell of 

 the snail. After attaining the full size, and remaining all the winter 

 in that state, the insect subsequently passes about twenty days in the 

 pupa state (as ascertained by Desmarest, Bull. Soc. Phil, 1824'.), from 

 which issues forth a fulvous-coloured fleshy and apterous imago, bliree 

 quarters of an inch long, to which Meilzinskj^ gave the name of Coch- 

 leoctonus vorax. Desmarest, however, succeeded in rearing the males 

 of Drilus flavescens (about a quarter of an inch long) from the same 

 kind of larva?, thereby proving that the Cochleoctonus was the female 

 of this genus ; which fact was further confirmed by the discovery of 

 the sexes united together, as well as by an admirable memoir upon 

 their internal anatomy, by M. Audouin (Ann. Sc. Nat. vol. ii.), by 

 whom it was also noticed that the exuvite of the larvae exactly close 

 the aperture of the snail shell. The female exhibits the remark- 

 able circumstance of having the thorax composed of three segments, 

 similar to those of the rest of the body, thus resembling the structure 

 of the larvae. There is also a note, by Latreille, upon Meilzinsky 's 

 Memoir in the An?iales des Sciences Naturelles, vol. i. (My Jig. 2(5. 14. 

 represents the mandibles ^fig. 15. the male antennae •,Jig. 16. the female 

 antennae; and^^. 17. the tarsus of the male.) 



The genus Lycus comprises numerous singularly formed, and 

 chiefly exotic, species, not materially differing in the sexes, both of 

 which are winged ; and none of the species have been ascertained 

 to be luminous. The head is produced into a dcflexed rostrum 

 (Jig. 27. 7. and 8.), a structure serviceable, on account of the insects 

 being generally found upon flowers, particularly those of the Um- 

 belliferae : they also inhabit the decaying trunks of trees. In 

 some of the exotic species (Lye. latissimus, «.^"C.), the elytra arc 



