296 DISEASES OF INSECTS. 
upon acrid plants, which the Meloe likewise feeds upon ; 
from whence with wonderful agility they leap upon the 
Andrene, &c. that visit these flowers. Strong, however, 
as all these facts appear, still we cannot help exclaiming 
with the illustrious Swede last named, Who could ever 
have imagined that the larva of this great beetle would 
be found upon the body of jlies,—and we may add, or — 
bees? Who could ever imagine that it would feed like 
a bird-louse and resemble it so closely? that in the in- 
sertion of its palpi it should exhibit a character exclu- 
sively belonging to that tribe?? Another circumstance 
seems to indicate that these hexapods at the time that 
they take their station in bees or flies are perfect insects 
—they do not vary in size, at least not materially. Where, 
we may also ask, if they are to become large beetles, 
where do they take their principal growth? It cannot 
be as parasites on the little bees or flies that they are 
usually found upon; they must soon desert them, and 
like their kindred blister-beetles, as is most probable, 
have recourse to vegetable food. What an anomaly zn 
rerum natura! It is much to be wished that some skil- 
ful insect-anatomist would carefully dissect the Meloe ; or 
perhaps by digging round the roots of the ranunculuses 
and other acrid plants the larva of that beetle might be 
discovered in a later stage of growth, and so this mystery 
be cleared up. I should observe here, that Scopoli has 
cescribed three parasites as Pediculi; viz. P. rostratus, 
coccineus, and Cerambycinus ; the first of which Fabricius 
has adopted under the name of P. Gryllotalpa, but which 
are all evidently hexapod Acarina. 
a oN. Dict. d’ Hist. Nat. xx. 110—. > Ent, Carn. 1052—4. 
