THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 40l 



researches of Dr. Coquerel. Here the three species figured 

 are said to be 'condemned to eternal darkness' in the central 

 regions of figs. These figs are the fruit of Ficus terragena, 

 and are unfit for human food. Dr. Coquerel found the three 

 species (the figures of which are given above, copied from the 

 plate in the ' Revue et Magasin de Zoologie,' 2nd series, 

 vol. vii. pp. 365 and 422) in abundance in the interior of 

 these figs, together with great numbers of a fourth species, 

 which he named Chalcis? explorator, and which he believed 

 to be parasitic on the other three species. However, he did 

 not ascertain it to be so, but merely observed that the four 

 species were mingled together, and he had previously seen 

 the explorator flying about the outside of the figs. The other 

 three species, he observes, are remarkably inactive : when 

 disturbed they roll themselves together and remain motion- 

 less ; they have no eyes, no ocelli, no palpi, no maxillae, no 

 wings; but have powerful mandibles. Dr. Coquerel mentions 

 that they have analogy with Scleroderma contracta, and 

 supposes that the males are winged and unknown, and may 

 have their place next to Scleroderma. Scleroderma has no 

 near affinity with the Bethylidae, and has been supposed by 

 some to belong to the Mutillidae, and by others to be the 

 female of Myzine : it has some resemblance to the female 

 Australian and South American Thynni, and by these con- 

 nections the primitive and semichaotic forms, discovered by 

 Dr. Coquerel, expand into the numerous and powerful tribe 

 of aculeate Hymenoptera, surpassing other insects in intellect, 

 of which the wasp and the bee are most familiar examples, 

 though a great part control other orders of insects, by using 

 them as food for their young. Scleroderma seems to have 

 * more affinity with Typhlopone, the 'worker' of Labidus, and 

 with Dichthadia glaberrima, the supposed female of Dorylus ; 

 and thereby the multitudinous tribe of ants, whose economy 

 is so remarkable, emerges from the blind and radical 

 ApocryptBB and Sycocryptae, the perpetual dwellers in the 

 interior of figs. But the affinity of these two genera to the 

 Chalcidiae is more evident, and appears by several connecting 

 links in the Agaonidae ; and thus the near relations to the 

 general ancestors of the thousands, and perhaps tens of 

 thousands, of the Chalcidiae species, the tribe being con- 

 sidered in unity, are cradled in figs. The Chalcis ? explorator 



