We next proceed to the discovery and description of that perplexing insect, the Stylops melíttæ, and the establishment of the order Strepsíptera, the credit of which ought, in justice, to be given to Mr. Kirby; Rossi's meagre notice being almost worthless. These creatures, in their preparatory state, inhabit the interior of the abdomen of certain bees and wasps, from which they extricate themselves on arriving at their perfect state. Fig. 69. represents Dr. Leach's species, Stylops Kirbii, in the perfect state, and exhibits the forked antennæ, the remarkable fan-like wings, and the

69

short lateral ap

pendages of the thorax, which analogically represent the true elytra, as Latreille, in fact, proved in the Ann. Gén. des Scienc. Phys., vol. vi., by

discovering their attachment to the mesothorax (see Kirby and Spence, iii. 592. note), long before Mr. Curtis published his illustration of the genus, in which he claimed this discovery.

It has long been known that the genus Xenos (having the antennæ not articulated beyond the fork) is found both in the old and new world, but no species of Stylops (which has one of the branches of the antennæ jointed after the furcation) has hitherto been recorded as found in America. Mr. G. B. Sowerby has, however, had the good fortune to extract two specimens of a species of this genus (Stylops Childrèni G. R. Gray), out of the abdomen of a North American bee, and I have figured it, with numerous details, in Griffith's translation of Le Règne Animal, Ins. pl. 59.

Mr. Curtis has recently established a third genus, in this singular order, under the name of Elénchus [a clearing up, a demonstration]. It is to be regretted, that, in illustrating the genus, Mr. Curtis did not introduce a figure of the front of the head. This would have cleared up the doubts which now exist respecting the structure of the only parts of the mouth which he has mentioned. In his description, these parts are described as "maxillæ, long, slender, lanceolate, and horny," and the fig. w 3. corresponds with this description, whilst in his fig. D 3., the organ which is figured is repre

VOL. V.- No. 26.

Y

sented as three-jointed. Mr. Haliday calls them "palpi?" and, from analogy, I should certainly be inclined to adopt this denomination. In his observations upon genus, Mr. Curtis speaks of the sexes, but in his description he is silent as to any sexual variation in the antennæ, abdomen, &c. The Stylops tenuicórnis of Kirby is evidently, as the specific name at once suggests, the type of this genus, if, indeed, it be not the same species as the Elénchus Walkeri. When it is remembered that Mr. Kirby's specimen was found in a cobweb, allowance must be made for his insufficient description, but he expressly notices its small size, slender antennæ, and subsessile eyes.

The next memoir to which I purpose directing the attention of the student, is Hagenbach's Description of the Marmolyce phyllodes [marmolyce, a hideous spectre, phyllodes, resembling or abounding in leaves] (fig. 70., natural size), a Javanese

species of Coleoptera belonging to, but totally unlike every known form comprised in, the Linnæan genus Cárabus; and remarkable for its flatness, and the great dilatation and posterior production of the sides of the elytra. The insect, indeed, at first sight looks more like a bit of thinly rolled gingerbread [Italian jumbles], such as we now see in the London bakers' windows, than an animal. Upwards of thirty

specimens of this extraordinary insect have recently been brought to England from Java.

The remaining memoir to which I shall refer is entitled "A Description of Chiasognathus [chiaso, to run down, gnathos, a jaw; decurrent processes of the jaw] Grántii [George Grant, M.D., who imported the insect]; an insect forming the type of an undescribed genus, with some brief remarks upon its structure and affinities; by J. F. Stephens, F.L.S.;" a quarto tract, extracted from the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions for 1831, illustrated with two plates, containing coloured representations of the upper and under sides of this magnificent insect, with outlines of it in various positions, and of its essential organs, executed by myself.

This genus, as interesting from its structure, as it is remarkable for its splendour and colouring, belongs to the family of stag beetles, Lucánidæ ; and, in order to render the following observations more intelligible, I here insert an outline of the insect (fig. 71.), of the natural size, omitting a portion of

given a very full generic and specific description of the insect, and has stated that it was brought to Dr. Grant, surgeon on board his Majesty's ship Forte, on the South American station, by a native, who informed him that he found it on a resinous shrubby plant, in the Island of Chiloe, which is separated from the main land at Valparaiso by a very narrow channel. M. Dupont informs me that two specimens of the insect have lately been received in Paris. The following extracts from a letter addressed by myself to Mr. Stephens, dated 12th of January, 1831, comprise some of the observations made during the progress of my examination and delineation of the

"The golden bronze upon the elytra, the burnished golden green of the raised centre of the thorax, and the varying colours of its sides and of the lateral spines, together form an assemblage of tints exceeding in intensity every thing which I have hitherto met with in entomology. In the structure of many of its organs, equally striking peculiarities present themselves. The spines which arm the hinder margins of the thorax, and the whorl of hairs at the tip of the long basal joint of the antennæ, are characters which we look for in vain amongst the known genera of Lucanidae, and which to myself are of great interest, as tending to prove the correctness of the opinion which I have advanced in the last number of the Zoological Journal, of the intimate affinity between the stag and capricorn beetles, Lucánidæ and Cerambycidæ. The furcate anterior produced part of the head (clypeus), the distinct existence of four eyes, the great strength of the fore legs, the extraordinary elongation of the basal joint of the antennæ, and the whorl of hairs above mentioned which ornament its tip (for I cannot imagine of what service it can be to the animal), are all characters of a very interesting kind. But it is in the structure of the mouth that the entomologist will derive the greatest interest. The upper jaws, or mandibles, (which, in our common powerful stag beetle, are scarcely longer than the head and thorax,) here acquire the length of the whole body; but although they are very strong, and evidently capable of biting very sharply at their base, towards the middle they become flattened, and at the tip they are deflexed and incurved, crossing over each other, so that this portion of the jaws can scarcely be of much service to the insect, when employed in the ordinary use of mandibles. Their very tips are also bent backwards; and here again we are at a loss to imagine for what purpose this last peculiarity has been bestowed upon the animal, since we can scarcely imagine (as a celebrated French entomologist has done re

specting the hooks of the antennæ of the Paússidae) that they are for the purpose of enabling this insect to suspend itself from the twigs of trees when asleep. On examining the jaws of the stag beetle, we externally perceive a tubercle at its base, which, in this new insect, is greatly developed into an additional pair of lower horns similarly crossing each other, and furnished along their inner edge with short spines.

"The upper lip, or labrum, is very distinct, being composed of a pocket-shaped leathery plate, with a strong rib down the centre. The terminal portion of the lower jaws, or maxillæ, is very long, delicate, and fringed with very slender hairs. The food of the stag beetles consists of the flowing sap of decaying trees, which is lapped up in the typical genera by the terminal plates of these lower jaws, and of the lower lip; but in this insect a difficulty appears to exist, from the very arched form of the upper jaws; since it is impossible for it, when standing upon the trunk of a tree, to apply these fine terminal plates to the tree, so as to collect the sap, without opening the jaws very wide. A similar difficulty exists in a mammalious animal, the giraffe; the singularly awkward position of which, when feeding from the ground, is well known. The case is not, however, exactly parallel, since the situation of the natural food of the giraffe does not require such an extraordinary exertion; whereas, in this insect, there appears no other manner of avoiding the difficulty, from the natural situation of its food.

"The lower lip (labium) and its appendages (instrumenta labialia mihi), although the least remarkable in appearance, are of equal interest with any other of the organs; since the investigation of their real structure involves the solution of the analogies of the various parts of the mouth, in the whole of the annulose sub-kingdom so elaborately treated by Savigny.* Hence, in consequence of the true analogies of the various organs not having been, as it appears to me, accurately traced by the learned authors of the Introduction to Entomology, an anomaly has been stated by them to exist in the stag beetles, the internal palpi being regarded by them as belonging to the tongue, and not to the lower lip. On examining the under surface of the base of the head of this new insect, we perceive a large, nearly square, sub-convex plate (jugulum), from the

* Professor Rennie has attempted to ridicule, but has not disproved, Savigny's views. He will not be able to do the latter, until he can prove that the arm of a man, the fore leg of a quadruped, and the wing of a bird, are not the representatives of the same organ; often agreeing almost to the number of digiti, but varying in the mode of developement of the joints, so as to adapt them to their intended uses. Savigny's theory is but an application of this principle to groups but little understood.