184 Prof. J. C. Schiddte on the Classification 
manner, spreading out a pair of pointed hooks now in one 
direction and then in another ! 
Nevertheless it is but justice to these observers to say that, 
had they not gone to their task with their eyes blinded by 
prejudice, they would not have imagined they saw what they 
never really did see, nor have taken refuge in imterpre- 
tations which they would otherwise have disdained; and their 
prejudice was, that similarity in outward appearance always 
entails similarity in habits of life. Whether the mother beetle 
deposits her eggs in the clefts of the bark, or, what is far more 
probable, penetrates through the openings of old burrows, and 
lays her eggs in old galleries, these latter are certainly not the 
work of the Melasis-larva. 
The similarity in outward appearance between this larva and 
those of Buprestidee means nothing more than that the former 
is destined to live in the burrows formed by the latter or by 
other similarly equipped xylophagous larvee. What the larva of 
Melasis tears and perforates with its mandibles must be some- 
thing soft, not a hard substance ; in fact it cannot be anything 
else than the skin of really xylophagous larvee and pup. What- 
ever be its food, it must take it in by drinking, and there is no- 
thing for it to drink but blood. 
LV: 
A minute orifice of the mouth; pointed mandibles, placed at 
a distance from the mouth; no labrum; the lower organs of 
the mouth coalesced; short antenne; slender body; the ninth 
abdominal segment serrated ; the anal segment placed under 
the preceding ; movement by lateral winding of the body : these 
were characteristics of the larva of Melasis, and these same cha- 
racters are those of the larve of Hlateridee. Nor must we allow 
ourselves to doubt their affinity because the former is destitute 
of legs and of chitinous armour, or because the mandibles are 
bent outwards instead of inwards and the second and third pair 
of appendages of the mouth are rudimentary ; to lay overmuch 
stress on these points would simply lead us through a byway 
back to the same confusion which has done so much mischief, 
and owing to which the Melasis-larva was thought more closely 
allied to the larvee of Buprestidze than to those of Elateridz merely 
because it was apod and soft. The larva of Melasis does not in 
reality present a greater modification from the type of Buprestidze 
than many of those which I have described in my Contributions 
to the Knowledge of the Larvie of Coleoptera*—not more, for in- 
* Naturhistorisk Tidsskrift, ser 3. vol. i. pp. 193-282, pl. 3-10; vol. iit. 
pp. 131-224, pl. 1-12. 
