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1878.]| Transformations and Habits of Blister-Beetles. 285 
ranged, and capped with but a shallow covering of mucous mat- 
ter. It is the egg-pod of this species which the larvz of the 
two Blister-beetles in question prefer; for while they will feed 
upon those of other species in confinement, I have so far found 
none in the deeper-necked, narrower, more compact egg-pods 
either of Caloptenus femur-rubrum, C. Atlantis, or Œdipoda sul- 
phurea, in which the eggs are regularly and quadrilinearly ar- 
ranged, as in those of C. spretus. Not only have I found a large 
proportion of the egg-pods of C. differentialis naturally infested 
with these Aficauta larve, but I have succeeded in hatching and 
rearing numbers in-doors. 
From July till the middle of October the eggs are being laid in 
the ground in loose, irregular masses of about 130 on an average 
—the female excavating a hole for the purpose, and afterwards 
covering up the mass by scratching with her feet. In confine- 
ment she sometimes omits both these instinctive acts and ovi- 
posits on the surface of the ground. She lays at several different 
intervals, producing in the aggregate probably from four to five 
hundred ova, judging from examinations made on the ovaries of 
some that were gravid. She prefers for purposes of oviposition 
the very same warm sunny locations chosen by the locusts, and 
doubtless instinctively places her eggs near those of these last, as 
I have on several occasions found them in close proximity. In 
the course of about 10 days—more or less, according to the tem- 
perature of the ground—the first larva or triungulin hatches. The 
hatching takes place without the aid of any ruptor ovi, for the 
egg-shell is so delicate that it easily splits, from mere expansion, 
along the back near the head, and breaks and shrivels up with the 
escape of the larva. These little triungulins (Pl. 1., Fig. 2), at first 
feeble and perfectly white, soon assume their natural light brown 
color and commence to move about. At night or during cold or 
wet weather all those of a batch huddle together with little mo- 
tion, but when warmed by the sun they become very active, run- 
ning with their long legs over the ground, and prying with their 
large heads and strong jaws into every crease and crevice in the 
soil, into which, in due time, they burrow and hide. Under the 
microscope they are seen to fairly bristle with spinous hairs, 
which aid in burrowing. As becomes a carnivorous creature, 
whose prey must be industriously sought, they display great 
power of endurance, and will survive for a fortnight without food 
