PARASITES OF THE TETTIGID^. 43 



the head being searchingly thrust from side to side. 

 Whilst moving forward a thread is spmi upon the 

 track, for a secure attachment of the creature to its 

 support. The larvte appeared to be searching the 

 earth for a suitable place for their transformation ; but 

 eventually one spun, on the inner side of a test-tube, 

 a double, loose, cydindrical cocoon, w^ithin which the 

 creature hybernated through several months, in the 

 form of a brown pupa ; finally, in the following June, 

 the female of an Hymenopterous, ant-like, insect dis- 

 engaged itself. This creature proved to be Gonatopus 

 pilosus, of Thoms., a description of which may be 

 found in ' Kongl. Vetensk. Akad. Stockholm,' 1860, 

 p. 180. 



The exact nature of the above-named sac-like body 

 seems to be still obscure. Is it a true egg, which, by 

 a kind of peduncle, has penetrated the skin of the 

 victim, and, by some unknown action, has caused the 

 juices to intercommunicate for the benefit of the yellow 

 larva, which subsequently hatches within ? On the 

 other hand, is there any truth in the idea which has 

 been started by others, that the maggot is a parasite 

 feeding upon a parasite, which has before fed on the 

 Cicada ? There seems to be an improbability that the 

 abstraction of nutritive substance, through a tube 

 which might be likened to an umbilicus, could take 

 place in a simple ovum. 



Long before the appearance of Prof. Mik's memoir, 

 M. Perris had remarked these purse-like bodies attached 

 to certain Athysanidse. He placed certain of the latter 

 insects in glass tubes, and subsequently showed to 

 his friend Dufour that a larva had spun a double silken 

 cocoon. From this cocoon he afterwards bred a speci- 

 men of Gonatopus pedestris, Dalm. He adds, in his 

 memoir, " Cette Hymenotere est il le vrai parasite de 

 VAthysamis, on bien le parasite de son parasite ? Je 

 pencherai pour cette derniere hypothese, a cause des 

 deux envelopes, tres distinctes, que presente le globule 

 noir." — (See Ann. Soc. Linn. Lyon, ser. 2, t. iv., 

 1857, p, 172.) 



