of new Fig-Insects. 11 



like origin. Some of the apterous species are furnished 

 with rudimentary alary appendages, consisting of a long 

 filamentary multiarticulate process emanating from the 

 mesonotum on either side, and coiling about among the 

 legs. These, as well as a large-headed species having 

 rudimentary wings of a different character, were in some 

 few instances extracted from closed pericarps, distended, 

 in the latter case, to larger dimensions, where they were 

 doubtless parasitic on the original occupants of these 

 abodes ; the co-existence of a well-denned germ-feeding 

 community having now been detected, which must have 

 already quitted the figs of the same species of Ficus 

 from which Walker's specimens were obtained. Hence 

 it follows that whensoever the primary inmates of these 

 seed-vessels have been duly determined by structural 

 affinities, all divergent races found in those recesses 

 must l)e regarded, prima facie, unless otherwise authenti- 

 cated, as hostile intruders which have only obtained such 

 a habitaculum for their offspring when rendered avail- 

 able by the agency of their victims, in whose bodies 

 oviposition has been effected while yet immature and 

 incarcerated within. Casual visitants, which deposit 

 their ova in the pulp after the phytophagous brood has 

 effected its exit, are readily recognisable by their larval 

 progeny, as in the case of the aforesaid obese grubs, the 

 larvae of Oscinis, and others. 



It may here be observed that the heterogeneous associa- 

 tion of predaceous and non-predaceous races among 

 Walker's so-called Agaonidce involves a palpable para- 

 dox, their severance being enjoined by due regard to 

 their respective habits. Thus his fig species of Idarnes, 

 no less than his supposed "neuters?" of Sycobia, and 

 even his type of the latter, — a winged male, as Professor 

 Westwood has lately determined, — now found conco- 

 mitant with the germ-feeding brood of Euprwtina, can 

 have no tribal affinity with Agaon, whose natural alliance 

 with Blastcyphaga was first pointed out by the latter, 

 many years back, in our ' Transactions ' (vol. ii., p. 223), 

 the serrate mandibular appendages in both amply testify- 

 ing to this effect. It would thus seem befitting to dis- 

 integrate this phytophagous group as a distinct sub- 

 family of Jig-insects proper, excluding therefrom all pre- 

 sumably parasitic types ; the former being defined as 

 Sycophagides, comprising two sectional divisions — the 

 Prionastomata and the Aploastomata — founded upon their 



