Dec. 1896.] Packard : Transformations of Hymenoptera. 
155 
NOTES ON THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE 
HIGHER HYMENOPTERA.—I. 
By A. S. Packard. 
The following descriptions of the larval and pupal stages of some 
of our more common Hymenoptera belonging to the fossorial families, 
together with the wasps and bees, were drawn up over twenty years 
ago and were preserved in the hope of adding others. But lack of 
time and material has prevented such additions and what few notes 
have been gathered are now offered for publication. The descriptions 
are, so far as possible, comparative, as this is especially needful in the 
case of larvae whose mode of life is so similar, and which therefore pre¬ 
sent very slightly marked specific as well as generic characters. In no 
group of animals, perhaps, are there such slight larval characteristics as 
in those of the Hymenoptera, the phytophagous forms being excepted. 
This is evidently due to their living confined in closed cells, to their 
lack of the necessity or power of locomotion, and to the fact that im¬ 
mediately after birth they can feed on food, whether vegetable, such as 
pollen, or the bodies of other insects or spiders stored up for them by 
the prevision of their parents. They live in total darkness, hence are 
eyeless; they have no enemies to shun, hence have no defensive spines 
or armature of any kind. The reduction in the limbs and mouth-parts, 
and the lack of any differentiation in form, ornamentation, or color 
of the integument; even the undeveloped proctodaeum, all tend to 
prove that the larval forms of these Hymenoptera are due to modifica¬ 
tions from simple disuse, for their embryology shows that they have de¬ 
scended from insects whose larval forms were out-of-door feeders, 
probably like those of the saw-flies, and provided like them with ab¬ 
dominal as well as thoracic legs. 
It is to be hoped that our entomologists will hereafter pay more at¬ 
tention to the habits of our wasps and bees, for the wonderful differen¬ 
tiation of the bodies of the adults is correlated with their varied and 
striking modes of life and their high degree of intelligence. 
r 
Pompilus funereus St. Farg. 
Larva .—This larva is with some hesitation referred to the above 
species, but it belongs to a common New England species. The head 
is round, scarcely longer than broad; the surface of the front not very 
convex, being much shorter and broader than in Polistes. Eyes on the 
