112 Sir S. S. Saunders on the 



recapitulated in the second edition of this work (1876, 

 p. 24). It would indeed be preposterous to conceive 

 that these parasitic larvae, whether yellow or black, 

 should be gifted with any special power of discrimination 

 in the selection of particular individuals by intuitive 

 perception at a single glance, their vast numbers serving 

 to compensate for the preponderance of failures to 

 obtain a suitable habitat on such occasions. 



But a remarkable circumstance is recorded by Smith 

 in a " Note on the Pedicidm Melittce of Kirby " which 

 appeared in the second series of our ' Transactions ' 

 (vol. ii., 1852, p. 4), wherein he relates that on the 6th 

 of April in the previous year, having "dug up on 

 Hampstead Heath "* a number of specimens of Antho- 

 phora, when these bees were in a semi-torpid state, it 

 being about six weeks earlier than their usual time 

 of appearance, he "placed a number of them separately 

 in pill-boxes, and on examining them some days after- 

 wards, was surprised to see several living specimens 

 of the Pediculus running over the bees. This obser- 

 vation," he continues, "appears to me to render the 

 question even more perplexing than before, or it is 

 confirmatory of Leon Dufour's opinion that these sup- 

 posed larvse are perfect insects." 



Here we are again involved in a similar complication 

 between the yellow and the black; for, as already shown, 

 Dufour's Triungulinus was the ordinary yellow larva of 

 Meloe ; whereas those found in the cells of Anthophora, 

 as aforesaid, are referred to "the P. Melittce of Kirby, 

 and were therefore black ; as to be inferred also from the 

 context, when adverting in the first instance to New- 

 port's larva, found on Osmia spinulosa, " resembling 

 that of Meloe in form, but of a deep black colour." Yet 

 after citing Newport's observation that "this is certainly 

 not the larva of either of the species of Meloe which he 

 had observed, although he was equall,y satisfied that it 

 is the larva of some genus of the same family," Smith 

 forthwith confounds both these larvae by stating that 

 " M. Leon Dufour considered this animal to be an 

 apterous perfect insect, as also did Mr. Kirby, who 

 named it Pediculus Melittce f" 



But the main point to be considered in Smith's dis- 



* These woi'ds are supplemented from Smith's version in the 

 Brit. Museum Cat., elsewhere referred to. 



