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III. Descriptions of the insects infesting the seeds of Ficus 

 Sycomorus and Carica. By J. 0. Westwood, M.A., 

 F.L.S., &c. 



[Read February 1st, 1882.] 

 Plates II., III., IV. and V. 



It is with much pleasure that I forward to the Entomo- 

 logical Society the completion of a memoir on the 

 insects infesting the seeds of Fiens Sijcamorus and Carica 

 in Egypt and the South of Europe, of which the first 

 portion was read before the Society on the 2nd January, 

 1837, and was published in the second volume of the 

 Transactions of the Society. It is entirely due to the 

 zeal and untiring perseverance of Sir Sidney S. Saunders 

 that I am enabled to make this additional communication 

 to the Society, accompanied by the extensive series of 

 illustrations representing the structural details of some 

 of the most remarkable hymenoiDterous insects hitherto 

 discovered, of which the sexes of a most anomalous 

 character are now clearly ascertained. This gentleman 

 has placed in my hands not only numbers of specimens, 

 both dead and alive, of the two species of insects de- 

 scribed in my memoir on Caprification, but has also 

 made and allowed me unlimited use of a large series 

 of microscopical preparations and dissections of the 

 insects, exhibiting the most remarkable portions of their 

 organisation. 



In the Linnean cabinet is contained a number of 

 winged specimens of the females of the species which I 

 described and figured in my former paper under the 

 name of Blastophaga Sycomori (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 

 ii., pi. XX., fig. 4). With these were also preserved several 

 small, almost shapeless, apterous insects, respecting 

 which both Mr. Haliday (who assisted me in examining 

 these insects) and myself were unable to arrive at any 

 satisfactory conclusion, regarding them as undeveloped 

 monsters of some kind, and not supposing it possible, 

 from analogy with all other known species of insects in 

 which the females are winged, that these little creatures 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1882. PART I. (APRIL.) 



