Descriptive Catalogue of the Coleoptera of South Africa. 167 
crawls about the ground, or is to be seen on the young grass, which 
it devours with great voracity. Kev. J. O'Neil, of Plumtree, Southern 
Ehodesia, informs me that a species (0. signifrons) " was particularly 
abundant a week after the first summer rains. He saw 3 or 400 under 
a single bush." Of the three species of Cantharis with glabrous elytra, 
one, C. nitidula, is usually found on the iridaceous plant Bohartia 
spathcBa ; another one, 0. lucida, in nearly any flower ; Iselma again is 
met with in numbers in the flowers of the Gazania and Dimorphotheca, 
belonging to the Compositse. When fearing attack or capture all sham 
death, drawing their head against the prosternum, tucking the legs under 
the body, and emitting at the same time through the leg-joints the pale 
yellow fluid already mentioned. It has been proved that this fluid is a 
means of protection against lizards, and probably also against small 
mammals or birds. The very conspicuous livery of the Mylahrini acts 
probably as a " danger signal" for their would-be devourers. Be it as it 
may, they supplement it by a very fetid, almost nauseous smell when 
seized. 
In the adult stage, most of the species the life history of which is 
known fully or partly, make a hole in the ground in which they lay the 
eggs. Meloe, however, do not deposit them in one spot only, or at one 
given time. They are extremely prolific insects, but the number of eggs 
varies, however, according to the size. Newport found 4,218 eggs in the 
ovaries of a female. Goedart counted 3,000 in the first laying, and 900 
in the second. Cantharis deposit their eggs in two masses containing 
from 150 to several hundreds. Mylabris are not so prolific, the number of 
the eggs varying from 25 to 40. Sitaris do not lay the eggs in a hole, but 
deposit them at the entrance of the burrows or galleries of solitary bees. 
Fabre evaluates the number of eggs laid in that position by one female at 
2,600 eggs. There is reason, however, to believe that usually the number 
is less than that, although still very considerable. In their early stages 
the Meloidce are parasites. They either feed on the honey made by 
Hymenoptera, on the orthopterous insects collected as food-stores by 
fossorial wasps : on the eggs of locusts, the egg-pod of which they 
enter, or here on the larvae of ground-loving Psychid moths, into the sac 
of which they have penetrated. The eggs are laid in all likelihood near 
the nests of the bees or wasps, or the place of oviposition of the locusts. 
But instead of passing through the three usual stages, or instars, of 
larva, pupa, imago, they undergo from six to eight transformations, 
changing altogether their first form, losing their legs, turning to bladder- 
like creatures which at a later stage become again active, returning in the 
fourth stage to the shape of the second, &c. These unusual changes are 
called Hypermetamorphoses. 
The young larva is called Triungulin. It is always a tiny, very active 
