q/" Rhipipliorus paradoxus. 197 



shows also how the remains (corneous head) of the victim 

 would be beside the head, if not in the jaws, of its devourer, 

 and, it being remembered that the mouth of the cell is down- 

 wards, might remain there after the UliipiphoTUS had assumed 

 the pupal state. But that a Coleopterous pupa should hold 

 any thing in its jaws, whether previously held in the jaws of 

 the larva or not, I can only, with Mr. Murray, regard as im- 

 possible ; and if Mr. Stone means this, he has clearly com- 

 mitted some error. He uses the phrase " retain in their grasp," 

 which, with perhaps a little forcing, may be supposed to mean 

 the larval grasp, i. e. the grasp of the now cast larva-skin. 

 Or we may suppose that the remains of the wasp lying at the 

 top of the cell fell, on its inversion for examination, between 

 the pupa and the wall of the cell, looking just as if held there 

 by the pupa, 



I must leave Mr. Smith to deal with the way in which Mr. 

 Murray explains away Mr. Stone's observations, only observing 

 that, in my opinion, if Mr. Stone committed half the errors 

 imputed to him by Mr. Murray, he must henceforth be re- 

 garded as the most inaccurate observer on record. 



It remains to consider the new facts brought forward by 

 Mr. Murray, and which appear to have first led him to adopt 

 the guest-theory of the life-history of RMjnjyliorus. These are 

 the three instances in which he found a pupa of Rlnpiphorus 

 and one of the wasp in the same ,cell. These are somewhat 

 difficult to explain on either hypothesis, but they seem to me 

 to be much less explicable on the guest-theory than on the pa- 

 rasitic. Mr. Murray finds it very difficult to imagine a wasp- 

 larva turning round in its cell ; and, though I have not found 

 wasp-larvae such completely helpless sacks as he appears to 

 regard them, I agree that for a full-grown larva to tm-n round 

 in its cell would be simply impossible. Yet, on the guest- 

 theory, this must have occurred in two out of the three in- 

 stances he mentions. And how the wasps could possibly feed 

 the larva at the bottom of the cell, when the upper one was well 

 grown, I cannot conceive. Mr. Murray has truly remarked 

 that a full-fed wasp-larva, and equally therefore one of RJiipi- 

 phorus, completely fills the cell it occupies. Now, in the three 

 cases in question, if the larv» were fed by the wasps, why did 

 one or the other not grow to its proper size, so as to fill the cell, 

 and eject its companion? or why did one not eat the other? — 

 an occurrence of which he elsewhere admits the probability, 

 should a chance occur, which, on the guest-theory, must be 

 but rarely. 



On the parasitic theory, we have only to suppose that, for 

 some accidental reason, of which several might easily be 



