Dr. T. A. Chapman on the Life-Historynary colcMcus. I have not been able to give measurements,as they are very difficult to obtain from live birds not at ailtame. The voice of P. elegans is harsh and guttural, verydifferent from that of any of its relatives.XXIX.-Some Facts towards a Life-History of ohipiphorus paradoxus. By T. ALGERNON CIIAPMAN, M.D., Hereford. [Plate XVI.]BEFORE rccording my own observations on Rdz2ip/iorus, Idesire to congratulate Mr. Murray on his having confirmed theobservations of the late Mr. Stone, and on his having retractedall the doubts that he hlad cast on the credibility of the historyof Rhpiphorus as set forth by that observer. I am, however, much astonished when he further owns thatthe inhabitants of his doubly tenanted cells of last year werenot the pupoe of Rhipiphorus as he described them *, but thelarvoe; and doubtless also their fellow inhabitants, describedby him as injured wasp-pupo, were in reality the partiallydevoured wasp-larvae. Now, had he told us that these werelarvoe, and not pupoe, there had been no room for any difficultysuch as was raised by Mr. Murray. Nay, the very basis ofhis attack on Mr. Stone would have been but a confirmation otthe record of that observer, had Mr. Murray himself not com-mitted such a singular error of observation. There was anotherinstance of the confusion of the terms larva and pupa in Mr.Murray's first paper, which I did not previously refer to, as Ihad supposed it to be merely a lapsus calami, and which Mr.Murray accepted as such, when it was suggested to be so byMr. Smith. But it now appears that Mr. Murray did both inthought and in observation, as well as on paper, confuse larvSeand pupse together. Passing by his observation of the egg of Rhipphorus, Iwould merely object to such extraordinary ideas of develop-ment as Mr. Murray puts forth when he describes the supposedegg as struggling into life at the head, still egg at the base.In his further statement that the egg-shell becomes the firstskin of the larva, I believe that he might quote the authorityof Newport in the case of the larva of M oelo�; but in this in-* Mr. Murray's words are,-" In three instances I found two pups inthe same cell, a wasp-pupa and a Rhipiph1orus-pupa-a fact which seemsto me to be conclusive against the idea of the one feeding on the other.They must have been hatched in the saine cell, bred lovingly as larve imthe same cell, and undergone their metamorphoses in the saine cell.(Ann. & Mag. Nat. ist, Nov. 1869, p. 349.)314
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