1878. ] Transformations and Habits of Blister-Beetles. 215 
=~ issuing from the ground in the neighborhood of which there were 
wasps (gwépes—no specific reference given), and rashly concludes 
that the former were parasitic on these. Still more recently M. 
J. Lichtenstein, of Montpellier, France, has endeavored to dis- 
cover the larval habits of this species, and gives some reasons for 
believing that it develops in the nests of Halictus 
These facts, as well as analogy, pointed to a parasitic life and 
partly carnivorous, partly mellivorous diet for our own allied 
species, since the life-history of two genera in the family, viz: 
3 Meloé Linn. and Sitaris Latr., has been fully traced. Indeed, the 
young of all vesicants belonging to the Meloidæ, so far as any- 
-~ thing has yet been known of them, develop in the cells of honey- 
| making bees, first devouring the egg of the bee and then appro- 
=~ priating the honey and bee-bread stored up by the same. They 
=~ all are remarkable, in individual development, for passing through 
= seven distinct stages, viz: the egg, the first larva or #iungulin, 
: the second larva, the coarctate larva or pseudo-pupa, the third 
=~ larva, the true pupa, and the imago. They are further remark- 
’ able in that the first pair of spina are distinctly mesothoracic 
; 
es N E AEL O ae 
and dorsal in the triungulin. 
History of Meloë—The history of Meloë may be briefly summed 
up as follows: The newly hatched or first larva (now generally 
_ Called t¢riungulin) was first mentioned in 1700 by the Holland 
= entomologist Goedart, who hatched it from the egg. Frisch and 
= Réaumur both mistook it for a louse peculiar to bees and flies. 
De Geer, who also obtained it from the egg, mentions it in 
1775 as a parasite of Hymenoptera. Linnzus called what is 
evidently the same thing, Pediculus apis; Kirby, in 1802, described 
as Pediculus melitte,and Dufour, in 1828, named it 77 riungulinus 
_ andrenetarum, Newport, in 1845 (Trans. Linn. Soc., vol. Xx, p. 
297), first rightly concluded that it was carried into the nests of 
| bees, and described, in addition, the full-grown larva from exuvial 
1 characters, and the coarctate larva and pupa which he found in 
< 
> 
: 
= 
oA 
1 Quite recently (Comptes Rendus de ? Ac. des. Se., Paris, Oct. 11, 1877, p. 628) he 
has succeeded, by furnishing the larvæ of C. vesicatoria with artificial nourishment 
Composed of the filled stomachs of honey-making bees, and especially of Ceratina, 
_ in tracing the development from the triungulin to the coarctate larva, which last dif- 
_ fers from those of the other species considered by me, in freeing itself entirely from 
the second larval skin. He has thus established the fact that Cantharis agrees w 
-the other species of the family in its DPEN NOAS: Mor ke naan hadits a 
FRR as much as ever a ae 
