436 Mr. C. O. Bac nents Five Years’ Observations 
ants’ “‘ kitchen midden,” full of the usual débris, chitinous 
rings of all sorts of dead insects and goodness knows what 
else. I noticed the surface “ heaving” and proceeded to 
investigate. I expected Dipterous larvae like those I got 
on the refuse heaps of Paltothyreus at Agege [see pp. 519-20], 
but instead I found brownish rather maggot-shaped larvae 
with rings of brown bristles, but whose head end was the 
broad end, the posterior end tapering to a point with long 
golden bristles. I could see no head (as they shammed 
dead, I at first thought they were Dipterous pupae), and 
indeed so far I have not examined them closely. But they 
have thoracic legs and run about quite actively after their 
initial “sham.” Their shape is very Lepisma-like without 
the “tails,” and I think they are Coleopterous. I am 
hoping they are nearly full-grown. I am to leave them 
with Dr. Connal on the off chance that they may breed out, 
and will take a few larvae with me. I could easily have 
obtained dozens of them. Incidentally the ‘“ refuse” was 
simply crawling with mites, and when I opened the tin this 
evening to see how things were doing, I was astonished 
to see that these had all congregated to one spot on a round 
piece of débris which looked like a round reddish-brown ball, 
so numerous were the mites. The lamp-light made them 
_ scatter and bury themselves at once. 
5. The Infe-history of a Drilid Beetle, probably Selasia 
unicolor Guér., bred from Snails. 
[Material :—In spirit, a large apterous 2 probably of 
S. unicolor and a bristly larva similar to the one from 
which it developed. These larvae are well known in 
African collections and have long been suspected to be 
the immature stage of the Drilid, S. wnicolor. Farquharson’s 
notes make this conclusion highly probable, but it is to 
be hoped that male larvae will be found and bred. 
Mr. K. G. Blair writes : “‘ The Selasia 3 is a VERY much 
smaller insect than the 9 in question, and must come from 
a very much smaller larva. This disparity of size is really 
not contradictory to the specific identity of the two insects, 
as in our Drilus flavescens the disparity is almost as great. 
The larvae of the two sexes are also very different in size, 
and, like the Selasia, feed on snails, hibernating and pupat- 
ing in empty shells of their victims, but they do not appear 
to bury them as does the Selasia. 
“We have a note by Dr. F. Creighton Wellman attached 
to one of these larvae from Angola :— 
bie od 7 
