258 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



males of Enallayma cyathigerum, and one dead female, no doubt of the 

 same species. — W. J. Lucas ; Knight's Park, Kingston-on-Thames. 



Note on the Early Stages of the Larva of Polia cm. — There 

 is a curious point in the development of the larva of P. cM not 

 mentioned in Newman or Stainton, neither does Mr. Arkle mention it 

 in his note on the breeding of this species and its variety olivacea 

 (Entom. xxix. 61), i. e. the larva, when newly hatched, has only the 

 two posterior pairs of ventral claspers developed, the second pair being 

 indicated by two small papilla, only visible under a powerful lens ; the 

 anterior pair not visible at all. The young larva loops like a geometer. 

 After the first moult, the second pair of claspers are more fully deve- 

 loped, but are destitute of booklets, and are not used in walking; the 

 anterior pair only just visible. It is not till after the third moult that 

 the second pair are fully developed and used in walking, the anterior 

 pair not being developed till a moult later, and are, even then, smaller 

 than the three other pairs, and, as often as not, are not used in 

 walking, neither are they used in grasping the food-plant when the 

 larva is at rest. These observations were made on the larvae from 

 ova laid by a female var. olivacea. — N. F. Searancke ; Mitcheldean, 

 June 16th, 1896. 



A Hymenopterous Parasite. — About the middle of April this year, 

 at Bidarray in the Lower Pyrenees, I found, under a stone near a river, 

 a cocoon of a species of Lepidopfcera unknown to me, of an inch long 

 and half an inch in diameter ; the pupa-case, a brown, hard, smooth, 

 slightly curved cylinder, bearing no trace of segmentation or form of 

 imago. I placed it in a tin box ; on opening this on May 10th some 

 five or six hymenopterous insects were found crawling about, some 

 took flight, but a specimen or so were captured. On examination of 

 the pupa- case it was observed that at either end was a small aperture 

 gnawed ; on opening the case the lepidopterous imago, withered and 

 dry, was found to occupy a bare fourth of the space, the remainder 

 being filled with a colony of twelve hexagonal cells, four in the centre, 

 eight surrounding them, like a piece of honeycomb made of yellow 

 silk. Sharp, in his work on "Insects" (Cambridge Nat. Hist.), 

 mentions a Brazilian sawfly which constructs its nest on the bee comb 

 system, protecting the whole with a thick outer wall. In this instance 

 the protective wall was built by the larva of a lepidopteron, whose 

 larval parasites constructed within it, in accordance with the instincts 

 of their order, pupa-cells of the form best suited to the economy 

 of space in their cramped situation. A female imago of this hy- 

 menopteron measured three-eighths of an inch, the ovipositor adding 

 another eighth of an inch. The head and thorax were black. Abdomen 

 orange, darkening to black, and ending in a white spot just above the 

 ovipositor. The first pair of legs was inserted far forward on the 

 thorax, the other two pairs close together far back ; the hind pair was 

 the longest. The wings were four. A male specimen was coloured 

 similarly, but measured an eighth of an inch less, and was more 

 miniature in all his parts. Under the microscope the legs showed the 

 divided trochanter of the sub-order Hymenoptera Parasitica, and the 

 venation of the wings proved to be that of the family Ichneumonidse. 

 The antennae long, reaching to tip of wings, black, with a bar of white 



