" Pedimlus Melittcs " of Kirby. 109 



Meloe, except as one of these minute Pediculi melittcs, as 

 Kirby calls them." But the identity of the latter with 

 the former was not accepted by Kirby, who treated them 

 as distinct ; and Dufour described his Trkmgulinus as 

 " pallide rufus,'' thus obviously coinciding with the now 

 acknowledged larvae of Meloe, to which indeed Dufour 

 expressly refers it, as corresponding with the " Pou 

 d'abeille que Linnaeus designa sous le nom de Pediculm 

 Apis, en I'accompagnant de cette courte phrase speci- 

 fique, filiformis ferrugineus " (Ann. Sc. Nat. ZooL, Tom. 

 xiii., 1828, p. 62; tab. ix., figs. 1—4). Nevertheless, it 

 would seem far from improbable that this surmised 

 identity, not hitherto estabhshed, may eventually be 

 confirmed. 



Mr. George Newport, in his first memoir ''On the 

 Natural History, Anatomy, and Development of the 

 Meloe" (Trans. Linn. See, vol. xx., 1847, p. 297), men- 

 tions the circumstance that on the 16th of July, 1829, 

 he captured a specimen of Osmia spinidosa, on which he 

 found a parasite precisely similar, in form, size, and 

 activity, to the larvae from the eggs of Meloe, but " it 

 differed entirely from the others in colour. It was deep 

 black, with brown eyes." In this respect it closely 

 agreed with the parasite found by the Rev. Mr. Kirby on 

 Andrenafuscata, and regarded by him as distinct from 

 the yellow larva described by Linnaeus and Fabricius as 

 Pediculus Apis, and also by M. Leon Dufour, as lately as 

 1828, as a distinct genus of apterous insects, by the 

 name of Triungidinus andrenetaritm. I have no doubt 

 (he adds) of the correctness of Mr. Kirby's opinion, that 

 the larva found by him on Andrena was distinct from 

 the yellow larva of Meloe, the Pediculus Apis of 

 Fabricius ; and I have little doubt also of its identity 

 with that taken by myself on Osmia spinulosa. These 

 certainly are not the larvae of either of the Meloes I 

 have examined, although I am equally satisfied that 

 they are the larvae of some genus of the same family. The 

 larvEe I have reared from tlie eggs of Meloe riolaceus, M. 

 Proscar abceus, and M. cicatricosiis have always so exactly 

 resembled each other in their yellow colour and in form 

 that I have been unable to distinguish them, excepting 

 by a slight difference in size. The larvae of M. cica- 

 tricosus are a little larger than those of the other species. 

 I may also state that these larvae always retain their 

 yellow colour, and only become a little darker after they 

 have been several days from the egg (pp. 310, 311). 



