Anaspis. | HETEROMERA, 81 
On flowers of white-thorn, &.; it has also been bred from woody excrescences 
on the trunks of birch trees; common and generally distributed throughout the 
kingdom. 
The chief season for the genus appears to be at the end of May and 
the beginning of June, when the white-thorn is in blossom; in fact all 
blossoming trees appear at this season of the year to attract certain of the 
species in profusion. 
RHIPIDOPHORIDE. 
About fifteen genera and one hundred species belong to this genus ; 
they are widely distributed throughout the greater part of the world, 
both in tropical and temperate countries, and range from Siberia to 
South Africa, India, and Brazil; seven genera represented by thirteen 
species occur in Europe, of which one only is found in Britain; the 
family forms the second group of Mulsant’s Longipédes, the first group 
being the Mordellides; some authors have included them in a tribe 
under the family Mordellide; certain of the genera are in the larval 
state parasitic upon Hymenopterous insects, and Rhipidius pectinicornis, 
a continental species, is parasitic on the orthopterous Blatta germanica. 
The following are some of the chief characteristics of the family :— 
Elytra narrow and acuminate, strongly divaricate at apex, not covering 
the wings; head vertical, strongly constricted behind eyes, which are 
oval and entire ; antenne 11-jointed (except in certain females in which 
they are 10-jointed), pectinate or flabellate in the males, often serrate in 
the females; thorax as broad at base as elytra ; scutellum hidden or almost 
hidden ; mesosternum short, metasternum large; legs, as a rule, long, 
anterior coxe large, conical, and contiguous, spurs of tibie usually dis- 
tinct ; claws bifid at apex. 
METGCUS, Gerstiicker. 
This genus contains only one species, which has by some authors 
been included under Rhipidophorus (Rhipiphorus) ; it appears to be 
very variable, no less than nine varieties being mentioned by Heyden, 
Reitter, and Weise in the last Huaropean catalogue. Besides the 
characters above given the following may be mentioned for the genus :— 
Head small, deflexed, almost flat on its upper surface, antenne inserted 
on small frontal protuberances between the eyes, which are small; 
thorax very deeply and broadly channelled in centre, and produced at 
base into a very strong lobe which covers the large scutellum ; inter- 
mediate coxe distant; anterior tibie without distinct spurs; tarsi 
longer than the tibiz, with large bifid claws; abdomen with six visible 
ventral segments; the larva of MW. paradoxus is found in the cells of 
wasps’ nests, and it is probable that the female deposits her eggs in the 
already formed cells, her abdomen being long and acuminated and suited 
to the purpose. 
VOL. V. G 
