Insects. 1241 



insects I am not aware of any instance being recorded of their catching and devouring 

 butterflies. — C. R. Bree ; Stowmarket. 



Economy of Meloe. — At the meeting of the Linnean Society, on the 18th of No- 

 vember, the Lord Bishop of Norwich, president, in the chair, Mr. Newport read a 

 a paper ' On the natural history, development, and anatomy of the Oil-beetle, Meloe, 

 more especially of Meloe cicatricosus of Leach.' This paper, which is intended by the 

 author as the first part of a monograph on the genus Meloe, and relates almost entirely 

 to the natural history of these insects, excited a good deal of attention. The author 

 commenced by stating that although the Meloes are such very common insects in their 

 perfect state, scarcely anything is known of their natural history or development, and 

 that no one had been able to follow out their metamorphoses. The species on which 

 he had made his observations are Meloe violaceus, M. Proscarabaeus, and M. cicatri- 

 cosus. These insects come forth at the end of March or beginning of April, the latter 

 species nearly a fortnight later than tbe others. They feed on the butterwort and dan- 

 delion, and the female deposits her eggs in a little burrow which she excavates to the 

 depth of about two inches in a dry soil at the roots of grass in situations exposed to the 

 sun. The eggs are hatched in from three to five weeks according to the season, and 

 the larva, which Mr. Newport has often seen come from the egg, is a little yellow hex- 

 apod, identical with that which is occasionally found on the bodies of the Apidae and 

 their dipterous parasites Volucella, Syrphus, &c. He found the parasitic habit of 

 these larva by placing some Hymenoptera among the specimens which he had bred 

 from the egg, when they immediately attached themselves to the bees, in the same way 

 as he had found done by others he had captured. Thus far his observations agreed 

 precisely with the observations and statements of Goedart Degeer, Keaumur, St. Far- 

 geau, Brandt, and ethers, and he expressed his surprise that any entomologist of the 

 present day should have denied their being the larva of Meloe, as had been done by 

 Mr. Westwood, in face of the veiy direct statement of the observers mentioned. A 

 number of observations were then stated to show some very marked effects which are 

 produced on these larva? by the presence of light, which Mr. Newport gave reasons for 

 believing, founded on the recent discovery of Dr. Faraday, is the primary source of all 

 vital and instinctive power. The number of eggs deposited by the Meloe is very great. 

 He counted upwards of four thousand in one specimen, all ready to be deposited, and 

 each Meloe deposits twice or thrice in each season. In the second and third layings 

 there are not so many eggs as in the first. The larvae when hatched, attracted by the 

 light ascend the stems of flowers, and attach themselves to the trees, (when they alight 

 to collect pollen) and are thus conveyed by them to their nests. The object of their 

 attachment to the parent-bee is thus shown to be that of conveyance only, and not for 

 the purpose of preying upon il parasitically. The young Meloe is supposed to feed in 

 the bees' nest on the food stored up for the young bees. The author has found 

 the larva of M. cicatricosus in two different stages in the nest of Anthophora retusa,in 

 both which it differs very greatly in form from the young larva. In the latter stage, 

 where the larva is full grown, it is a thick heavy maggot not much unlike that of the 

 bee itself, and it is then almost completely apodal. It changes to a nymph surrounded 

 by the larva-skin, which is not thrown off, but merely detached from the body. The 

 nymph resembles that of the Hymenoptera, and changes into a perfect insect within a 

 very few days. This takes place in the autumn, and the insect then passes the winter 

 iu its cell in a state of hybernation, and only comes forth early next spring. The 

 Bishop of Norwich in returning the thanks of the meeting to Mr. Newport, stated that 

 iv 4 p 



