68 . Proceedings of Scientific Societies. [ January, 
pollen that night, while the stigma is not ready for four or five 
days to recéive the pollen. The rest of the flower withers while 
the stigma is secreting its liquid. 
President Riley read a communication on the life-history of the 
blister-beetles. After showing that, notwithstanding the import- 
ance to commerce and to the pharmacopeea, of the well-known 
Spanish fly (Cantharis vesicatoria), its early life-habits have yet 
remained a mystery. The same holds true of our American 
blister-beetles, many of which have the same valuable vesicatory 
power. The fact that their transformations have hitherto eluded 
investigation is all the more remarkable that some of the species 
abound during certain years and are quite injurious to potatoes, 
tomatoes, beans and other cultivated plants. Prof. Riley has dis- 
covered that they prey in the larva state on locust eggs, and he 
has reared several species from the eggs of that western scourge, 
the Rocky mountain locust. These blister-beetles are remarkable 
for passing through many curious changes, which are known as 
hypermetamorphoses. After illustrating these, Professor Riley 
gave the following summary: 
rom the foregoing history of our commoner blister-beetles, it 
is clear that while they pass through the curious hypermetamor- 
phoses so characteristic of the family, and have many other fea- 
tures in common, yet Epicauta and Macrobasis differ in many 
important respects from Meloe and Sitaris, the only genera hith- 
erto fully known biologically. To resume what is known of the 
larval habits of the family, we have: 
First, the small, smooth, unarmed, tapering triungulin of the 
prolific Sitaris, with the thoracic joints subequal, with strong, 
articulating tarsal claws on the stout-thighed but spineless legs, 
and, in addition, a caudal spinning apparatus. The mandibles 
scarcely extend beyond the labrum; the creature seeks the light, 
and is admirably adapted to adhering to bees but not to burrow- 
ing in the ground. The second larva is mellivorous, and the 
transformations from the coarctate larval stage all take place with- | 
in the unrent larval skin. We have: q 
Second, the more spinous and larger triungulin of the still more 
prolific Meloe, with long caudal sete, but otherwise closely 
resembling that of Sitaris in the femoral, tarsal and trophial char- 
acters, in the subequal thoracic joints, in the unarmed tibia, an 
in the instinctive love of light and fondness for fastening to bees. 
_ The second larva is also mellivorous, but the later transformations 
take place in the rent and partly shed skins of the second and 
coarctate larva. We have: 
: 
. 
ness and tendency to burrow and hide in the ground. The second 
