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XI. Notes upon a Strep sipterous insect parasitic on an 

 exotic species of Homoptera. By J. O. WestwooD, 

 M.A., F.L.S., Pres. Ent. Soc, &c. 



[Read 4th April, 1877.] 



In tlie "Proceedings" of our Society on the 6tli of May, 

 1867 (Ser. III. vol. v. p. Ixxxviii), I recorded the fact 

 that I had observed what I regarded as the head of a 

 Strepsipterous insect protruding from the body of a 

 Homopterous insect, captured by Mr. Wallace ; and in 

 the admirable memoir of Sir Sidney S. Saunders, on the 

 StylopidcB, in our "Transactions," 1872, p. 48, the still 

 undescribed parasite is shortly alluded to as forming a 

 separate 'Division B ' in the group, termed Homopterobia. 

 After a second interval of five years, I now beg leave to 

 offer to the Society a short description and figures of this 

 parasite, so far as can be shown by an undissected spe- 

 cimen, the insect itself on which it is parasitic {Epora 

 subtilis, Wlk.,* from Sarawak, Borneo) being, I believe, 

 still known only in our collections by the two specimens 

 (male and female) described by Mr. Walker, and which, 

 being in a dried condition, cannot be subjected to a 

 satisfactory internal examination as to the size and extent 

 occupied by the body of the parasite, the head only of 

 which is exserted in the specimen of the female Epora. 



It is ciu-ious to speculate on the modus vivendi of a 

 parasite, like a Stylops, in the body of a constantly active 

 Homopterous insect, all the other known species being 

 parasites upon Hymenopterous insects having a quiescent 

 pupa. 



A comparison of the figxn'es of the exserted head of 

 this parasite Avith those published by Von Siebold, Beitr. 

 z. Naturg. Wirb. Thiere, tab. iii. figs. 65, QQ, of the head 

 of the pupa of Xenos sphecidarum ; and by myself in 

 Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. i. N. S., pi. 8, figs. 2a — 2i, of 

 the pupa of Hijlechthrus Rubi, and vol. ii. N. S., plates 

 15 and 16, with details of the head of the pupa of Xenos 

 Heydenii, especially figs. 11, 12, 13 and 14, must, I 



* Walker, in Proc. Liun. Soc. (Zool.) vol. i. p. 1 15, pi. 7, fig. 3, 20Ui 

 Jan. 1857. 



TUANS. ENT. SOC. 1877. — rAKT ITT. [OCT.) O 



