60 



than that of the pupa, and is much larger. The largest pupa of Sphmr. danica agreed 

 entirely whith fig. 6 f, except in one remarkable point : the mouth of the female projected 

 freely through the skin of the pupa (though I was unable to discover any rent or larger 

 opening in the skin), thus presenting the extraordinary sight of two mouths protruding 

 beyond the ventral surface of the pupa; the mouth of the female is situated a little behind 

 the front extremity, that of the pupa nearly in the middle of the surface; the diameter of 

 the latter in proportion to that of the former being as seven to ten. — Fig. 2 c in pi. Ill 

 illustrates such a young female belonging to Sphcer. antillensis, which has rent and thrown 

 off about the front third of the skin of the pupa, whereas the hindmost part of the body is 

 still enclosed in the larger posterior part of the skin, including the mouth of the pupa, and 

 as the same animal is illustrated in fig. 2 a magnified on the same scale as the ovisac 

 exhibited in fig. 2 b, a comparison of these two figures will show clearly , how much the 

 animal grows from its stage as an egg up to the moment when it comes out of the pupa. 



But what about the male? The animal which Salensky found in its earliest stage 

 as pupa, and of which he has had several specimens, according to his description and 

 illustration is only the female, and of the pupae I have seen, the smaller ones contained no 

 animals, and the very large ones contained females. As mentioned above, a pupa containing 

 a female of Sphcer. danica is - 25 mm. long, but a male which, judging from its appearance, 

 seemed to be recently hatched, was only - 15 mm. long, whereas a full-grown male of the 

 same species was - 24 mm. in length. So we notice here the same growth of the young 

 male as mentioned above in Sphcer. paradoxa, but at the same time we find that the full- 

 grown male is somewhat smaller, and the recently hatched male only a little more than 

 half as long as the large pupa (-25 mm.). As the small pupae examined by Salensky and 

 by myself never contained any animal, it is very probable that the male of this species, as 

 well as that of Sphcer. paradoxa, is developed directly from the larva, and the size of the 

 recently hatched male agrees perfectly with this supposition. Unfortunately, of all my eight 

 species of this group I have only seen very few larvae, however, the contents of a single 

 specimen of these seemed to indicate that a male, not a pupa, was developing in it, still its 

 growth was not sufficiently advanced to decide the question with absolute certainty. 



Of Sphcer. longipes I have found a single specimen of a pupa (pi. VII, fig. 2 g), 

 which essentially coincides with those belonging to the group Sphcer. Leuckartii. This pupa 

 is ab. -17 mm. long and •11mm. broad, rather elongate, as we see; the lateral margins run 

 almost parallel in part of their length, the front extremity is somewhat pointed and has a 

 small orifice, out of which a short broken thread is protruding. The pupa is quite naked 

 and possesses in the centre of its ventral surface a small, but well developed, projecting 

 mouth, at the front and at the sides of which some chitinous lists and muscles are noticed. 

 Its contents consist of a granular substance, in which no organs are indicated; only towards 

 the front extremity we see — as shown in the illustration — some vague indications of an 

 organic structure. 



