416 



DR. H. BTTRMEISTER ON A 



Observations cm a Light-giving Coleopterous Larva. 

 By Dr. Hermann Burmeister, F.M.L.S. 



[Eead December 7, 1871.] 



In a box of books lately (April 18, 1871) received from London, 

 I was pleased to find the continuation of the ' Journal of the 

 Linnean Society ' in exchange for the ' Annals of the Public 

 Museum of Buenos Ayres.' 



Amongst the papers which attracted my attention was one on a 

 light-giving Coleopterous larva, named Astraptor illuminator 

 (vol. x. p. 74), collected by Mr. A. Fry at Rio de Janeiro, and 

 described and figured (PL I.) by Mr. A. Murray. 



To the detailed description by Mr. Murray, some futher no- 

 tices are added in the same volume (p. 503) by another observer, 

 Mr. E. Trimen, wherein he mentions a similar larva found here 

 in Buenos Ayres, by Mr. Ogilvie, twelve years ago. 



I was so fortunate as to observe the same larva at Parana, the 

 former capital of the Argentine Bepublic, in August 1858 ; and 

 as Mr. Trimen's notice is rather brief, I thought it might be of 

 some interest to the Society to receive a fuller description, with 

 figures, which I therefore now send, in the hope that this account 

 may bring forward some information as to the imago state of the 

 insect produced from the larva, which has now been known for 

 some time. I say advisedly that the larva has long been known, 

 because Azara speaks of the same larva in his ' Voyage,' torn. i. 

 p. 214, alluding to the double light from the body ; and another 

 full description of a nearly allied species from Brazil is given 

 by Prof. F. T. Beinhardt, of Copenhagen, in a Danish periodical 

 work which I do not exactly remember, but which I believe to 

 be the ' Videnskabelige Meddelelser ' for 1854. 



My larva was of the same size as that described by Azara, 2 inches 

 long and a J inch broad. The body was composed of the head 

 and thirteen joints, of which the largest is that next the head, 

 and the smallest is the short tube containing the anus. The 

 colour was yellowish-brown, like that of the meal-worm (the 

 larva of Tenebrio molitor), with the head rather darker. On exa- 

 mining the insect attentively, I could perceive that a large part 

 of the surface of the body (namely the whole of the underside) 

 and the incisions between the segments were of a paler, yel- 

 lowish-white colour, and the skin was here very thin and soft ; 

 but on the upperside every one of the eleven segments, after 



