CLASSIFICATION OT THE ASOALAPHID^. 223 



history objects their especial business for a pecuniary object, 

 are necessarily devoted principally to those groups that find 

 the most admirers, and are too often compelled, not always 

 willing, pauderers to a collecting-mania, in which the biology of 

 the species of the most desiderated orders is scarcely attended to, 

 and that of even the most conspicuous forms in other groups wholly 

 neglected. Hence the records of the earlier stages and habits 

 of the AscalaphidcB are extremely meagre. "With regard to the 

 conspicuous species of the European restricted genus Ascalaphus, 

 the same remarks will obtain with almost equal force. As is 

 usually the case, those entomologists resident in localities wliere 

 the insects abound feel the objects too familiar to be worthy of 

 investigation ; so that, with one honourable exception, we are 

 almost without records of the habits of species which, from their 

 gaudy appearance, were originally considered Butterflies. Had 

 not this pleasing illusion been dispelled, wo should have found 

 hosts of observers, minute in details, and critical to absurdity in 

 their appreciation of the discoveries of their fellow entomologists. 

 The barely definable line of demarcation between the Ascala- 

 pliidcB and the more familiar 31yrmeleonidae, or Ant-lions, points 

 to similarity of habit, which has been sufficiently proved. The 

 larvaa of the former, however, never make pitfalls, which is a fre- 

 quent custom with those of the latter. 



Putting on one side several unimportant and vague remarks on 

 larvre supposed to belong to the AscalaphidcB, the first detailed 

 account of the habits of a species of tliis family is given in the 

 ' Trans. Linn. Soc' vols. xiv. & xv., by that careful observer the 

 Eev. Lanadowu Guildiug. Ho described with much care the 

 metamorphoses of a species found in the Island of St. Vincent, 

 in the "West Indies, which he named Ascalaphus Macleayanus, be- 

 longing to Eambur's genus TJlula. In vol. xiv. p. 140, he says, 

 " Habitat solitarius, volatu diurno satis frequens in dumetis S" 

 Vincentii ; ramulis emortuissa^pequiescit, hostesque colore fugit." 

 In vol. XV. is an extract from the minute-book relating to the 

 Meeting of June 6, 1826, in which we read at p. 510, " Animal 

 insectivorum ?, ssepe die quiescit in arbustis vetustis emortuis, cum 

 antennis alisque ramo applicatis, abdomineque in angulum (more 

 ramuli) extenso, sic hostes decipiens. Ova numero G4-75 lan- 

 ceolato-elliptica cinerascentia, apicibus puncto can dido in extre- 

 mitate ramulorum ponit imago; serie duplici alternatim agglu- 

 tinans ot circulis multis rcpagulorum ab hostibus dcfendeus. 



