OF NEW ENGLAND. 129 



on the flowers of the sweet briar and other Rosacese, 

 but that my female specimen is much larger than usual. 

 Hence the above description will not be out of place. 



Both at Warwick, Mass., and at Bridport, Yt., Mr. Put- 

 nam found several nests of bees infested by this beetle. 

 Though it is probable from the fondness which these in- 

 sects manifest for the sweets of flowers, that they visit the 

 nests of the bees for the purpose of consuming the honey 

 stored up within them, we do not as yet know the extent 

 of the injury they cause, or whether in their early stages 

 of growth they are not true parasites. 



Larva of Meloe angusticollis Say. 



This insect, as is well known, is parasitic in its early 

 larval stage on the bodies of wild bees, and dwells as a 

 pupa in their nests. I have found them several 'times upon 

 the bodies of Bombus, Halictus, and Andre?ia, with their 

 heads plunged in between the head and thorax of their 

 victims. During the flowering of the willows in April, I 

 have found them in abundance upon the flowers, while 

 those bees which had evidently brought them there were 

 more or less infested by them. I have tried in vain as 

 yet to rear the larvse by feeding the bees with sugar. 

 They are comparatively hardy and with proper care in 

 changing the bees as fast as they die can most probably 

 be raised to maturity. They are very active in their 

 habits, very quickly deserting the half-dead bee for a 

 newly introduced and more lively one. 



I would here venture to suggest that there is nothing 

 very abnormal in the development of this genus of Coleop- 

 tera, so far as concerns the different forms of the young ; 

 judging simply from the form of the semi-pupa figured by 

 Newport, which is called by him and previous observers 

 a distinct form equivalent to the larva and pupa form, I 

 would suggest that that stage is simply the beginning of 

 the pupa form. 



In studying the development of JBombus, I have ascer- 

 tained that the semi-pupa takes on a most remarkable form, 

 intermediate between that of the worm-like larva and the 



ESSEX INST. PROCEED. VOL. IV. Q. 



