■ MELECTA* ^57 



? Atropos, Newman. 

 ? Lachesis, Newman. 

 2. armata, Panzer, $ ? . 6-7 lines. 

 punctata, Kirby. 

 ? Tisiphone, Newman. 

 ? Alecto, Newman. 

 .? Clotho, Newman. 

 ? Meg<sra, Newman. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



Named from fiiXi, honey, Xejco, I collect; which is 

 scarcely the case, for the parasites, although they may 

 indulge in the luxury of honey as epicures, or resort to 

 it as a repast, cannot be said to collect it, for it is only 

 the labouring bees that truly collect it for the purpose 

 of storing. 



These insects are extremely handsome, their ground- 

 colour being intensely black, brightly shining on the 

 abdomen, npon the segments of which it is laterally 

 ornamented with silvery pubescent tufts and spots ; the 

 black legs are also variously ringed with similar silver 

 down. The great variation these spots and markings 

 undergo — from what cause we know not — has induced 

 several entomologists to consider them as distinct spe- 

 cies. But the strongest varieties so rarely recur with 

 identical ornaments, and as almost all can be closely 

 connected together in a regular series by interlacing 

 differences impossible to divide, it would be certainly 

 incorrect, without stronger characteristics, to raise such 

 fugitive variations to specific rank. Whether the cu- 

 rious spines of the scutellum which they possess fur- 

 nish a more certain character is doubtful, for we find 

 all such processes equally liable to variation in size and 



