INSECTA. 
ishes, it loads its head with sand by meansof one of its anterior 
feet, and jerks itto a distance. In this manner, and sometimes 
in the space of half an hour, it will remove a reversed cone of 
sand the base of which is equal in diameter to that of the area, 
and the height to about three-fourths of the same. Hidden 
and quiescent at the bottom of its retreat, with nothing visible 
but its mandibles, it awaits with patience till an Insect is pre- 
cipitated into it; if it endeavour to escape, or be at too great a 
distance for it to seize, it showers upon it such a torrent of sand 
by means of its head and mandibles, as propels it stunned and 
defenceless to the bottom of the hole. Having exhausted its 
juices by suction, it drags away the carcass and leaves it ata 
distance from its domicil. 
The nutritive matter it thus obtains is not converted into any 
perceptible excrement, neither is this larva—and such also is 
the case with several others—provided with an opening analo- 
gous to an anus. It can abstain from food for a long period 
without any apparent suffering. 
When about to pass into the state of a chrysalis, it encloses 
itself in a perfectly round cocoon, formed of a silky substance 
of the colour of satin, which it covers externally with grains of 
sand. Its fusi are situated at the posterior extremity of the 
body. The perfect Insect makes its appearance at the expira- 
tion of fifteen or twenty days, and leaves its exuvium at the 
aperture it has effected in its cocoon. 
AscaLaApuus, Fab. 
Where the antenne are long and terminate abruptly in a button; 
the abdomen forms an oblong oval, and is hardly longer than the 
thorax. 
The wings are proportionally wider than those of the Myrme- 
‘eones, and not so long. 
Bonnet has observed, in the environs of Geneva, a larva simi- 
lar to that of the preceding subgenus, but which neither moves 
backwards nor excavates a funnel. The posterior extremity of 
its abdomen is furnished with a bifid plate truncated at the 
end(1). It is perhaps the larva of the scalaphus italicus, pe- 
culiar to the south of Europe, and which now begins to appear 
in the neighbourhood of Paris and Fontainebleau(2). 
(1) This larva has also been found in Dalmatia by. Count Dejean. 
(2) The same works. For some species of New Holland, see Leach, Zool. 
Miscellany. 
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