200 Mr. F. Smith on the Parasitism 



the normal number. It is also famished with six pairs of 

 spiracles. 



Mr. Murray says the description is imperfect, since it is not 

 stated whether the larva has feet or not — " a not unimportant 

 point when the question is whether the larva passes a nearly 

 motionless life in one cell, or a roving one." But there is no 

 such question before us. It feeds upon a single larva in a 

 closed cell, we are informed ; there is no travelling about 

 " like a Blondin," neither is there any chance of its being 

 " gobbled up by the big wasp-grub." 



It is stated that " we all know (that is, all entomologists 

 know) how soon a larva freshly excluded from the e^^ shrivels 

 up if its food is not at its mouth the moment it comes out." 

 Now Mr. Murray does not appear to be aware that some para- 

 sitic larvaB live for days, nay, even for weeks, until they are 

 conveyed to, or by chance hnd, the nourishment suitable for 

 their sustenance. The late Mr, George Newport, in his paper 

 on the oil-beetle, has recorded the fact of larvse living without 

 food for a considerable length of time. He writes, " I saw 

 most of the larvae leave the &gg as early as five o'clock in the 

 morning. They were confined in a tin box for several days ; 

 after remaining ten or eleven days^ many of them crept be- 

 neath the lid." He also mentions other larvse that he kept 

 nine days, but which were perfectly healthy and active, 

 although they had not taken any nourishment. I have also 

 kept ilie^oe-larvffi for a fortnight in a perfectly active condition 

 without food ; also larvae of Melittohia, a bee-parasite : the 

 larvaj of Monodontornerus, a parasite upon Antliopliora^ can 

 exist for days without food ; and I will just refer to one other 

 parasitic larva, that of Stylojys : these, when hatched, may 

 be observed perfectly active days after their extrusion from 

 the ^gg, without nourishment. 



I am asked if I " think that a meal of one animal can suf- 

 fice to nourish another into as great dimensions as the animal 

 eaten." I reply, first, that in the case before us the animals 

 are not of the same dimensions ; both are before me, and I 

 see in the wasp a much more bulky insect than i\\e,Bhipiphorus. 

 I am comparing a worker wasp with its parasite bred from a 

 worker-cell; I have also a pupa from a cell of the queen wasp, 

 and I challenge Mr. Murray to produce a specimen of a RMpi- 

 phorus as large as a queen wasp. What will Mr. Murray say 

 when he compares the parasite of Antliopliora [Melo'e) with 

 the bee itself? and yet its larva is said to feed upon the larva 

 of the bee ; some authors suppose it to feed upon the food 

 stored up by the bee. Now it is clear that Meloe^ an insect 

 full twice the size oi Anthophora^ is nourished upon the same 



