432 REMARKABLE INSECTS. 



enormous eyes, a wide head, beautiful dark burnished- 

 bronze elytra, and orange legs and mandibles. One spe- 

 cimen I captured, had just regaled himself with a fly, which 

 I allowed him to eat up, before I attempted to make him 

 a prisoner. He held the unfortunate dipterous insect, 

 which was of the size of an (Estrus, firmly with the dilated 

 tarsi of the fore feet, had cut off the head with his power- 

 ful mandibles, and was busily intent in consuming the 

 flesh of the inside of the thorax, shaking his prey occa- 

 sionally like a tiger, which these Cicindelidas most 

 assuredly represent in the insect-world. Also, on the 

 leaves, but totally unlike its volatile neighbour the The- 

 rates, was a species of Cassida, a pretty tortoise-shaped 

 beetle, with the elytra margined with bright golden 

 yellow, four dark blue spots at the angles, and the central 

 part of the back of a brown bronze, with deep red mark- 

 ings. A most extraordinary -looking hymenopterous in- 

 sect, belonging to the genus Stephanus, with a red head, 

 a black body very much elongated, light brown, semi- 

 opaque wings, enormous hind legs, and three long slender 

 stylets at the end of the tail, hovered steadily around the 

 trunks where the sunbeams penetrated, and seemed to 

 delight to crawl up and down the bark. During flight 

 it has a very remarkable appearance, reminding one some- 

 what of a heron on the wing, with its long legs awkwardly 

 stretched out behind. In the fresh-water pools I obtained 

 specimens of a large water-scorpion, near Nepa rubra, 

 more than two inches in length, with a brown body, and 

 blackish elytra. Its sting, the powers of which I unfor- 

 tunately experienced, is much more severe than that of 

 the Nepa cinerea we find in the ponds of Europe. A new 



