OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



125 



except a small scale at the base of the front wings, is minutely punc- 

 tate, and covered more or less with sparse, stiff, pale-yellow hairs, 

 thickest on the under side, on the hind edge of the abdominal joints, 

 and at the tip of the abdomen. The wings are dusky, with smoky, yel- 

 lowish-brown. It varies very much in size, the cocoons ranging from 

 0.35 to 0.80 inch in length, and the flies from 0.35 to 0.68 inch. This 

 variability in size is owing, doubtless, to the age and size of the 

 [Fig. 35.J White Grub on which it develops, the larva having the 

 power to adapt itself to the conditions to which it is 

 born, and from which it can not escape except by death, 

 or maturity. The body in the male is narrower than 

 in the female, and ends underneath in a single spine, 

 though in most species of the genus, according to West" 

 wood, it ends in three. The front wing in the male is 

 also less notched at the end than in the female, and 

 has the marginal cell closed instead of open at the ex- 

 tremity. 



One would suppose that an insect which develops 

 at the expense of the White Grub, hidden as it always 

 is under-ground, would itself be well shielded from 

 enemies. Yet such is not the case, and I have bred 

 several specimens of a parasitic beetle belonging to 

 the curious genus Rhipiphoi'its* from the Tiphla co- 

 coons. A curious chapter might be written on the sin- 

 gular parasitism of this genus of beetles, and of the 

 genera Meloe and Stylops, all which have somewhat 

 similar habits, and undergo what is known as hyper- 

 metamorphosis (see Rep. V, p. 15); but in this connec- 

 tion it suffices to say that from what Mr. Smith, and 

 other observers have recorded of the parasitism of 

 Bipiphorus paradoxus on the common Yellow-jacket 

 ( Yespa vulgar I s).\X\2X the newly hatched EJuplphorus 

 larva is six-legged ; that, piercing a hole in the skin of 

 the Wasp-grub, it eats its way into the interior, where 

 f-)i it remains till its victim is full grown and has formed its 

 cocoon : that^t then casts its skin (and its legs with it), 

 issues from the body of the wasp larva, and, fastening 

 to the second body-joint of the same, rapidly appropri- 

 ates its substance — going through its transformations 

 avhite Grub fu.ngus. within, and gnawing its way out, as a beetle, through the 

 wasp cocoon. The eggs of the Rhipiphorus are probably deposited 

 on flowers frequented by Tiphia and other wasps, to the bodies of 



^A 



* The Rhipiphorus [Emmcnadia] pcctinatu^ Fabr. , var. known as venlralis. 



