466 APPENDIX. 



the anterior tarsi are equally slender in these two species, and only vei-y 

 feebly dilated in the male ; - in the female of A. septentrionalis the 

 intermediate legs are a little darker than in the male. The different 

 male characters, &c., distinguish it from A. pulicaria, Costa, and A. 

 nigripes, Bris., and the non-moniliform antennce from A. rufilabris, Gyll, 

 and A. melanostoma, Costa (for these species, see Vol. V. p. 75-77.) 



Oviposition of Metoecus (Rhipiphorus) paradoxus, L. On page 

 82 of Vol. V. will be found an account by Dr. Algernon Chapman of the 

 life history, as far as known, of M . paradoxus ; the questions, however, 

 of oviposition, of the hatching of the young larva, and its means of 

 reaching the wasps' nest, are left undetermined ; in the Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine, however,. for January, 1891, Vol. ii. (New Series) 

 p. 18, Dr. Chapman again takes up these questions, concerning which 

 he has during the past year made several important discoveries. I may 

 add that Dr. Chapman sent to me, together with, the article, several 

 valuable drawings of the eggs as laid, &c. ; his observations are so in- 

 teresting that it is best to quote them at length : 



" Failures are often as instructive as successes, and have, in this case, 

 led up to the trifling successes I have at length reached, so that I am 

 sorry to have kept no record of what I did in the matter at various 

 times in recent years. I did, however, obtain examples of the beetle in 

 greater or less numbers, and treated them in various ways, placing them 

 with earth, sand, various plants, flowers, etc., but always with the 

 result that in a few weeks at furthest they died, without either ovi- 

 positing or showing any desire to hibernate. I, however, came to, or 

 was confirmed in, the conclusion that the eggs were laid in autumn, and 

 that the beetles did not hibernate, partly from the death of the beetles, 

 partly from the females always being full of eggs fully matured. I have 

 never succeeded in rinding a free larva in the wasp's nest, whence I con- 

 clude that they are introduced one by one, and very quickly bury them- 

 selves in a wasp grub; whereas, did the beetle hibernate, the female would 

 lay many eggs in a nest, and the young larvae would certainly be often met 

 with. The female contains so many ova (though not so many as Meloe) 

 that it is obvious that the great mortality of the species occurs between 

 oviposition and the safe arrival of the larva into the interior of the wasp 

 grub, especially as after that date the mortality is nil, If the egg were 

 laid in the nest, this would not be so. 



"Thinking out these matters, I this year (1890) enclosed a number of 

 freshly disclosed beetles in a sunny place, with portions of dead and 

 rotten wood, as well as some flowers. I was lucky enough on two 

 occasions to see the beetles in cop., proving certainly that pairing occurs 

 in autumn, and afterwards I observed several females, fertile or other- 

 wise, searching the crevices of the wood with their extensive ovipositors, 

 and at times quietly resting with the ovipositor nearly out of sight, 



