[ 297 ] XVI. On the Natural History, Anatomy and Development of the Oil Beetle, Meloe, more especially of Meloe cicatricosus, Leach. By George Newport, F.R.S., F.L.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, 8fc. First Memoir. The Natural History of Meloe. Read November 18th, 1845. X HE habits and economy of the genus Meloe of Linnaeus have constituted one of the most curious and difficult problems in the natural history of the Articulata that have remained unsolved to the present day. Although many most zealous naturalists have devoted much attention to these insects, which are of large size, and are found in abundance in our meadows throughout the spring and summer, no one has hitherto succeeded in tracing out the whole of their metamorphoses, or in gaining any satisfactory information respecting their general economy. Some of the older naturalists, Mouffet, Goedart, Frisch, GeofFroy, DeGeer and Linnaeus, and all modern observers, have described the perfect insects very accurately ; and some of the former, Goedart, Frisch and DeGeer, have even given detailed observations on the oviposition of the female, on the eggs, and on the early stage of the larva ; but beyond this they have been unable to pursue their inquiries. No account whatever has been given of the adult larva, of the nymph, or of the first appearance of the perfect insect. This blank in the natural history of an entire genus of our most common insects has arisen in part from the anomalous habits of the species, which' seem to exist in the early periods of their life as parasites, and in the later as purely vegetable feeders. It has also in part arisen from the doubts that have repeatedly been expressed of the accuracy of the statements made by the three distinguished naturalists just mentioned respecting the earliest stage of the larva, and of the probability of the conclusions to which they seemed
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