766 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCLETY, Vol. XXIII. 



surely be fraught with far more disastrous effects than could possibly accrue 

 from the attack of the pest. Besides, Pyrhauata machcevalu larvse do not 

 by any means all pupate on the ground. They do so under webs on the 

 leaves themselves, and the moth emerges before these fail ; or in crevices 

 in the bark of the trees, and that at all heights. We might mention that 

 pupas of Kyblcsa, mentioned on the same page, are also found, as often as 

 not, in cells made on the leaves. 



On page 63, at the top, we find the statem^ent that a large species of 

 Elatev is found in dead Xylia trees and the fact is mentioned in connection 

 with wood-boring beetles. We do not know any wood-boring beetles belong- 

 ing to the Elaterdce though a number of them live in decaying, nearly rotten 

 wood; there is a very large species which lives in Tamarix in Sind, where it is 

 predaceous upon a prionid larva. 



Anthia sexguttata mentioned on page 173 will kill and eat anything it 

 can master. It is not, generally, a forest species, however ; being far com- 

 moner on black cotton soil in the plains and open places than in forests. 

 Many larviB of the malacodermatous fireflies (page 180) feed uioon snails, and 

 a large one we are acquainted with will demolish four of considerable size in 

 a single day ; so that they might be considered to be of some use to plant- 

 life in destroying one of the enemies thereof. Belionota pradna (page 217) 

 attacks Tenninalia ])aniculata and T. belerica in the Bombay Presidency, as 

 well as other trees. Apropos of the Family Cantharidce (page 246) nothing 

 is mentioned about the interesting life histories of which several have been 

 fully described by Fabre and others. The species are seemingly all parasitic 

 and their hosts are bees, wasps or grasshoppers of different kinds. The 

 eggs are generally laid in the earth, in little pits made for the purpose, 

 which are afterwards filled up by the mother-beetle and then left to them- 

 selves. After a time each egg gives birth to a curious, extremely, active, little 

 larva, known as a triangidin from its legs each ending in three claws. These 

 run about on the surface of the ground or climb up into flowers, etc. , until, 

 in the latter case, they meet a bee, into the hairs of whose body they 

 can fasten; or, in the former case, until they can burrow into a nest of some 

 particular species of wasp or into the egg-chamber of some grasshopper. 

 The bee carries the little larva away with it to its home where the latter 

 gets on top of an egg, which has been laid on the honey. It sticks to this 

 egg until it has fully consumed it, carefully avoiding contact with the liquid ; 

 then it changes into a comparatively formless grub of a quite different 

 shape, adapted to float. Consuming all the honey thus, it changes into a 

 pseudo-pupa, then into an active-looking larva again and, subsequently, into 

 a true pupa before emerging as a beetle. The bees selected are, as far as is 

 known, such as make nests in the earth. The development follows the same 

 sequence in the case of larvse that burrow into the egg-nests of locusts. 

 Mylabris* will probably also burrow as triangulin into the soil though it is 

 not known upon what eggs it feeds. Cissites (page 249) is found in the 

 larval state in nests of species of Xyloccpa in India. Whether the eggs are 

 laid actually in the borings made by the bees ; or whether they are laid in 

 the earth as in other species, giving birth to similar active larvae which climb 

 up into flowers from which the bees rifle the pollen to make their honey, is 

 not known. It would be interesting to know. It is probable that the genus 

 Xyloccpa generally is subject to attack by both the species of Cissites men- 

 tioned as, in Sind, testaceus was found in the borings of a different species to 

 latipes. The fact that the beetles of the genus Cantharis (Epicauta) are 

 found in great numbers m one spot will, we think, be found to depend upon 

 the insect upon which they prey existing there in large numbers combined 



• Mr. Bainbrigge Fletcher in " Some South Indian Insects " ust published 

 notes that Mylabris sp. actually does this. 



