Cerocomae, Mylabres and Zonites 



does not adhere to the rest, this body is a 

 nymph and nothing else. The wall sur- 

 rounding it is a dull white inside. I at- 

 tribute this colouring to the cast skin of the 

 tertiary larva, which was inseparably fixed 

 to the shell of the pseudochrysalis. . 



The Zonites, therefore, display a pecu- 

 liarity which is not offered by the other 

 Meloidae, namely, a series of tightly-fitting 

 shells, one within the other. The pseudo- 

 chrysalis is enclosed in the skin of the sec- 

 ondary larva, a skin which forms a pouch 

 without an orifice, fitted very closely to its 

 contents. The slough of the tertiary larva 

 fits even more closely to the inner surface 

 of the pseudochrysalid sheath. The nymph 

 alone does not adhere to its envelope. In 

 the Cerocomae and the Oil-beetles, each 

 form of the hypermetamorphosis becomes 

 detached from the preceding skin by a com- 

 plete extraction; the contents are removed 

 from the ruptured container and have no 

 further connection with it. In the Sitares, 

 the successive casts are not ruptured and re- 

 main enclosed inside one another, but with 

 an interval between, so that the tertiary 

 larva can move and turn as it wishes in its 

 multiple enclosure. In the Zonites, there is 

 the same arrangement, with this difference, 

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