122 
Psyche 
[June 
that some day a larva with completely developed internal gene- 
rative organs communicating with the exterior by ducts will be 
found and such a “larva” will be to all intents and purposes an 
adult. If this is ever established, we shall have a gradual tran- 
sition from species exhibiting complete metamorphoses to species 
without any metamorphoses at all as thus : 
Males and females undergoing complete metamorphoses 
Lycidce etc. 
Males and females undergoing complete metamorphoses but 
female larviform Lampyris noctiluca. 
Males undergoing complete metamorphoses; females not meta- 
morphosing Phengodes 
Males and females undergoing no metamorphoses, both indis- 
tinguishable from larvae “ Trilobite-larvae”. 
What Shelford means by “having examined male-larvae 
ranging from comparatively small size to nearly the largest is 
certainly very difficult to explain. Obviously he presumes that 
some of the “trilobite-larvae” commonly met with in the nature 
must be male-larvae and therefore all his conclusions based upon 
this wrong supposition are wrong. For all “trilobite-larvae” 
reared by me — and they number more than 50 and belong to 
three different species — have turned into females and we can 
therefore safely conclude that all the common “trilobite-larvae” 
we find crawling about in the jungle are female-larvae. 
What furthermore seems to have puzzled Shelford is the 
extraordinary size of the larvae. He states that “neither in Kina 
Balu nor in the neighborhood of Kuching, where ‘trilobite- 
larvae’ also occur does there exist, so far as known a Malacoderm 
beetle that could possibly be regarded as the adult in either of 
these families and this in spite of the fact that in the one place 
the larvae are extraordinarily abundant and in the other common 
enough.” 
It deserves furthermore to be pointed out that Shelford’s 
above quoted statement about Phengodes is misleading. As we 
shall see later on, the members of the peculiar American group 
Phengodini pass through a long pupal stage and the larviform 
