Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/90

62 could conjure up to his imagination. I will mention some of the species which I have captured there.

Saropoda bimaculata and rotundata I consider to be the same insect in different states, the specimens of rotundata being fine and recently developed. I have compared my specimens with those in Mr. Kirby's collection, from which he drew up the descriptions for his 'Monographia Apum Anglise,' and am satisfied that they are one and the same insect.

The Saropodæ are on the wing in July, but having visited this locality on the 4th of June last, I dug up a portion of the bank where their burrows were numerous, and met with some cocoons, all exactly resembling each other, which I had no doubt were those of Saropodae, as they proved to be, for during the first week in July three specimens were developed, and from one of the cocoons a Cœlioxys. The latter is a male, and as I consider it a new species, I send you a minute description of it. It is certainly not the male of either C. conica or C. rufescens, nor is it the C. vectis of Curtis.

I had observed the Cœlioxys entering the burrows of Saropoda, and had little doubt of its being a parasite. I have also seen it enter the burrows of Osmia bicornis and of Megachile circumcincta. Mr. Shuckard, in the Introduction to his admirable work on the Fossorial Hymenoptera, has remarked on "the apparent anomaly of parasites being of the same order;" and suggests that probably "a greater resemblance was necessary between the individuals, than in the case of internal parasites,"—destroyers of eggs and larvæ,—since "where the food stored up is the object of attack, it required all the sagacity of