﻿158 {December, 



cocoon, the skin becoming loose and being thrown into very fine folds ; 

 the head is bent forwards, and the lateral and sub-dorsal prominences, 

 which in the tense shining skin of the full-fed larva can hardly be 

 detected, are very distinct. 



Passing the winter as larvse, they remain, in the pupa state less 

 than three weeks before emerging, often however, if the weather be 

 cold, remaining perfect inside the cocoon for many days. G. ignita and 

 0. neglecta escape by cutting off circular lids from their cocoons ; G. 

 bidentata cuts out the diaphragm of its cocoon, and makes a circular 

 hole in the top of the spinipes cocoon. 



I may note here a distinction in colouring between the male and 

 female of G. neglecta, which, as it is not noted in Mr. Smith's excellent 

 Monograph of the group in the ' Entomologist's Annual ' for 1862, 

 may possibly not have been previously recorded ; viz., that in the male 

 the marginal sulcation of the third abdominal segment is blackish or 

 purplish from the margin almost up to the row of fossulets ; whereas 

 in the female the darker colour is confined to a line on the extreme 

 margin of the segment. 



It is, perhaps, worth pointing out, as bearing on the doctrine of 

 the survival of the fittest, that G. bidentata destroys those larvse of 

 O. spinipes that probably most strongly inherit the weakness, whatever 

 it may have been, that led to the death of their parent.* 



Abergavenny, 



September, 1869. 



Occurrence in Britain of Bledius spectabilis, Ktz. — In a note at p. 281 of the 

 second vol. of the " Insecten Deutschlands," Dr. Kraatz has described, in a few 

 lines, under the name of spectabilis, a species of Bledius closely allied to B. tri- 

 comis, Herbst, and found abundantly in Greece. Some little time since, however, 

 M. Fauvel challenged the correctness of this new species, stating both that it was a 

 southern variety of B. tricomis, and that Dr. Kraatz had mistaken the true tri- 

 comis of Herbst. Dr. Kraatz, upon this, returned to the question in the Berl. Ent. 

 Zeit., 1868, p. 346 ; re-affirmed the validity of the two species ; and established 

 their synonymy (about which there has been much confusion) in a most satisfactory 

 manner. 



Bledius tricomis has been for a long time in the British catalogue, and I have 

 now the pleasure of making known that Bledius spectabilis, Kr., is also a British 

 species ; and at the same time of shewing, from its geographical distribution, that 

 it cannot be a southern form of B. tricomis. I have found B. spectabilis in great 



* The opponents of that doctrine might, however, reasonably urge that the majority of the causes of 

 incompletion of the ordinary number of Odynerus' cells would, in all probability, be direct and incap- 

 able of transmission ; such as the death by violence of the parent during the work (she being then 

 peculiarly liable to injury, on account of her engrossment in the cares of maternity), the non-adapt- 

 ability of the soil for a proper nidus, a failure of adequate food for the larva, a sudden accession of 

 tempestuous weather preventing further mason-work, &c. — Eds. 



