58 Mr. Smith on Trypoxylon. 



days now rouse the insect from its inactivity, and it by degrees 

 struggles to free itself from the thin pellicle in which it is enveloped. 

 Tlie spines at the apex of the tibia are of essential service ; with 

 these it frees its antennae of their covering, by drawing them be- 

 neath the spines, and by that means readily strips it off; they also 

 serve to push the thin skin off the body, legs, &c. The first warm 

 day now serves to call the insect forth into active life. 



This insect, it will be observed, by no means confines itself to 

 one kind of food. The same I have observed of Tachytes pom- 

 piliformis, which at one times elects a Lepidopterous larva, and at 

 another a species of grasshopper. 



I would also record an observation which I made last autumn 

 upon Mellinus arvensis, which has been stated to carry dead flies 

 to the young larva when hatched ; this is undoubtedly true to 

 some extent, as I dug out nests in which the young larva was 

 feeding, and into which I had observed the parent insect carry a 

 dead fly. 



It is the usual mode with solitary insects to store up as much 

 food as is necessary, and then to deposit the egg ; but Mellinus 

 deposits an egg on the first fly stored, and then continues to com- 

 plete the necessary supply, the larva being hatched before she 

 has completed her task. I have also to record the same habit of 

 the common sand wasp, Ammophila sahulosa, which deposits an 

 egg upon the first caterpillar which she stores up, a circumstance 

 which I have frequently observed. One which came under my 

 observation last summer, I detected busily engaged in pulling out 

 the small pebbles, &c., with which she had stopped up the en- 

 ti'ance to her burrow. I dug out the insect and found a larva 

 feeding on a caterpillar previously deposited. I believe the dif- 

 ference of habit to result merely from the time of depositing the 

 egg, and not in the insect periodically supplying the larva, as in 

 the case of gregarious Hymenoptera . 



