398 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Slated that his young carrots were injured by what he seemed 

 to consider the same creature, but, from examples he sent, 

 the depredators in this case were evidently the larvae of a 

 Dipterous insect, Psila Rosoe. The larvae first showed their 

 presence by a slightly crumpled appearance of the leaf, 

 which commenced to drop. On taking up the carrot no 

 root-fibres are observed, the slender portion being dry and 

 brittle, and in the centre is found the larva. He observed that 

 all his neighbours' gardens were infested in a similar manner. 

 Mr. Druce said that the carrots in his brother's garden, at 

 Kingston, were destroyed by the same larvae. 



Monograph of Sfylopites. — Mr. S. S. Saunders read a paper 

 on these parasites, dividing them into subfamilies, according 

 to the Hymenopterous tribes with which they are asso- 

 ciated : namely (1), the true Stylopidae, found with the 

 Mellifera of Latreille ; (*2) the Myrmecolacidae, with the For- 

 micidcTB ; (3) the Xenidae, with the social wasps ; and (4) the 

 Pseudoxenidae, with the solitary wasps and Fossores ; these 

 latter tribes coinciding more or less in their habits and 

 economj', and requiring about eight or nine months (from one 

 year to the next) to attain maturity ; involving a correspond- 

 ing detention for their Strepsipterous dependents; whereas 

 the true Xenidae, corsorting with the social Vespidae, must be 

 reared from their primary hexapod condition in from thirty 

 to forty days, such being the term within which the larvae of 

 the social Vespidae attain the imago state; the females of the 

 latter hybernating with those of Xenos, which produce their 

 larval brood the ensuing year; whereas the Pseudoxenidae, 

 after their long-protracted larval condition as aforesaid, must 

 produce their young the self-same year in which tliey them- 

 selves complete their transformations, in order that their brood 

 may obtain access to the future larva-cells of their non- 

 hyl)ernaling foster-parents. As a sectional division for those 

 whicli associate with the Fossores (as first noticed by Dufour), 

 Mr. Saunders proposed the term Paraxenidae. The genera 

 and subgenera recorded were eight in number, comprising 21 

 species, as follows: — Halictophagus, 1; Stylops, 5 ; Hylec- 

 thrus, 3; Elenchus, 3; Myrmecolax, 1; Xenos, 2; Pseu- 

 doxenos, 3 ; and Paraxenos, 3. Of these 16 were European 

 (whereof 7 British), and 5 extra-European. 



