264! MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS, 



could I, in the mean time, observe that this worm (pupa) in all this 

 time took any considerable food, unless, perhaps, the stony and clayey 

 particles of its nest served it for food." (P. 226.) Reaumur (^Mem. 

 3. vol. 6.) has given an account of the ravages of this insect, and 

 Schaefter has also described it, and given magnified figures of the 

 larvae and its details, and which resembles the larvae of Opilus (^Ab- 

 liandlungen von Insecten, vol. 2. t. 5.). 



During a visit, in company with Messrs. Audouin and BruUe, to the 

 Pare de Belle Vue, in the month of July, 1837, we discovered a num- 

 ber of the nests of Megachile muraria (a large black mason bee) upon 

 a stone wall, with a south aspect. With the greatest difficulty, owing 

 to their hard stony composition, we detached some of them, and in 

 the interior of several we found the larva of a Clerus {fig. 29. 9.), de- 

 vouring the larva; of the bees, passing from cell to cell. One of these 

 larvae, which I am now endeavouring to rear to the imago state, has 

 exhibited similar habits to those described by Swammerdam ; but the 

 other, for want of its natural food, has burrowed into a piece of cork, 

 upon which it feeds. 



M. Al. Lefebvre has published an account of a small species be- 

 longing to this family, which he names Clerus Buquet, found by him, 

 in its different states, in the pith-like roots of Eschinomena paludosa, 

 which are used to line insect-cases coming from India. He has de- 

 scribed and figured the larva and pupa ; the latter of which {Jig. 29. 

 14.) was enclosed in a cocoon. The former {Jig. 29. 13.) varies very 

 considerably in its structure, as represented by M. Lefebvre, from the 

 larva of Clerus apiarius ; but the specimen was dried and shrivelled up, 

 as well as much damaged. Pie has had the kindness to present me 

 with his specimens of the insect in its various states. Upon examina- 

 tion it appeal's to me that this species belongs to a distinct genus, inter- 

 mediate between Thanasimus and Necrobia. The parts described as 

 the eyes of the larva are evidently the basal joint of the antennae, the 

 remainder of which is broken off; the true eyes are very minute and 

 granular, inserted behind the antennae, there being several on each 

 side of the head, which is oblong and flat ; the legs appear to be all 

 injured, one anterior femur alone remaining ; the thoracic segments 

 are much contracted, with several transverse channels, the specimen 

 being probably on the point of assuming the pupa state. The extre- 

 mity of the body is obliquely truncate at the eighth abdominal segment, 

 which is covered by a black horny plate. I could not ascertain whether 



