lves, in glass
tubes. Here they passed a second year, still in the same condition.

June returned once more and with it the appearance of the tertiary
larva, followed by the nymph. For the second time this stage of
development was not exceeded; the one and only nymph that I succeeded
in obtaining shrivelled, like those of the year before. Will these two
failures, arising no doubt from the overdry atmosphere of my
receivers, conceal from us the genus and the species of the
Mantis-eating Meloid? Fortunately, no. The riddle is easily solved by
deduction and comparison.

The only Melodiae in my part of the country which, though their habits
are still unknown, might correspond in size with either the larva or
the pseudochrysalis in question are the Twelve-pointed Mylabris and
Schaeffer's Cerocoma. I find the first in July on the flowers of the
sea scabious; I find the second at the end of May and in June on the
heads of the Iles d'Hyeres everlasting. This last date is best-suited
to explain the presence of the parasitic larva and its pseudochrysalis
in the Tachytes' burrows from July onwards. Moreover, the Cerocoma is
very abundant in the neighbourhood of the sand-heaps haunted by the
Tachytes, while the Mylabris does not occur there. Nor is this all:
the few nymphs obtained have curious antennae, ending in a full,
irregular tuft, the like of which is found only in the antennae of the
male Cerocoma. The Mylabris, therefore, must be eliminated; the
antennae, in the nymph, must be regularly jointed, as they are in the
perfect insect. There remains the Cerocoma.

Any lingering doubts may be dispelled: by good fortune, a friend of
mine, Dr. Beauregard, who is preparing a masterly work upon the
Blister-beetles, had some pseudochrysalids of Schreber's Cerocoma in
his possession. Having visited Serignan for the purpose of scientific
investigations, he had searched the Tachytes' sand-heaps in my company
and taken back to Paris a few pseudochrysalids of grubs fed on Mantes,
in order to follow their development. His attempts, like mine, had
miscarried; but, on comparing the Serignan pseudochrysalids with those
of Schreber's Cerocoma, which came from Aramon, near Avignon, he was
able to establish the closest resemblance between the two organisms.
Everything therefore confirms the supposition that my discovery can
relate only to Schaeffer's Cerocoma. As for the other, it must be
eliminated: its extreme rarity in my neighbourhood is a