124 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



often very beautiful. Most of the types are represented on 

 Plate II. ; but the more detailed notes on their life-history can 

 be better referred to under the respective genera. The Anomalous 

 spin no cocoon, the Ichneumon emerging from the pupa of its 

 host. The species of Mesochorus are all hyperparasitic, mostly 

 on other Ophionidse, especially on species of Limneria ; also on 

 various Braconidas. As a familiar example the life-history of 

 Paniscus virgatus, as worked out by Newport, may be taken : — 

 The parent Ichneumon deposits her black, shining, pedunculate 

 eggs on the caterpillar, when this is nearly full grown and ready 

 to pupate. The fated larva, exhausted by the parasites, has but 

 sufficient strength to complete and tapestry its cocoon or earthen 

 chamber, as the case may be, before it dies, leaving its newly- 

 formed abode to the occupation of its enemies, which grow 

 rapidly, casting their skins three times ; but as the body of the 

 larva is still connected with the egg-shell they are not entirely 

 got rid of until the larva is mature and becomes detached, before 

 forming its own black cylindrical leather-like cocoon. The larva 

 is mature on the fifteenth day : it is more than half an inch long, 

 of a curved form, being smallest at each extremity, and with 

 lateral fleshy tubercles (Linn. Trans, xxi. 71-77, pi. viii., 

 figs. 13-19). See also Westwood's 'Introduction' (ii. 145-7, 

 figs. 76, 7-15). Newport thus traced P. virgatus from the bursting 

 of its egg to its assumption of the imago state, and having 

 watched its growth and the formation of its tissues expresses the 

 opinion that " in the earlier stages of growth they more resemble 

 cotyledonous vegetables in general appearance than animal 

 organisms, which are destined to become some of the most 

 perfect and most active of their class" (I.e., p. 71). They live 

 by the direct abstraction of fluid from another living body into 

 its own; and he regards these larvse as the representatives 

 among insects of the prematurely liberated foetus of the kangaroo. 

 The similar economy of the common Paniscus cephalotes, exter- 

 nally parasitic on Dicranura vinula larva, is known to most 

 lepidopterists (Entom. xv. 163, and cf. Entom. xvi. 69); also the 

 successful remedy of removing the shining black Ichneumon eggs 

 from the anterior segments of the stung larva by means of forceps 

 or with a fine needle, as recommended by Erichson and Treitschke. 

 Apparently these eggs have recently been taken for pupa-cases 

 (Ent. Mo. Mag. xx. 227) and for small beetles! (Entom. xi. 251). 



