100 W. COLE ON A PARASITE OF HUMBLE EEE8. 



the young, but no indication of specialised organisation is discover- 

 able. It is attached to the female near one extremity of her body 

 at a point about one-fifth of its length. The junction is extremely 

 firm, and the animals seem almost organically connected, as it is 

 very difficult to separate them without rupture. The granular 

 matter filling the interior of the smaller worm appears to branch 

 into the female at the point of union ; but I have not been 

 able yet to obtain a preparation showing in what way this is 

 effected. Sir John Lubbock figures the large worm as having a 

 sac-like depression of the skin into which a corresponding projec- 

 tion of the small one is closely fitted ; but my specimens do not 

 show this clearly. 



Startling as the supposition may at first appear, the weight of 

 opinion is in favour of Sir J. Lubbock's view — that this minute 

 nematoid is, in fact, the male Sphoerularia, living an epizoic 

 existence permanently attached to his giant consort — beside whom 

 he shows so diminutively and cuts so sorry a figure. It is certainly 

 a curious assertion of woman's rights and the dignity of the sex 

 amongst the Entozoa ; but it is not altogether without its parallel 

 in the wide range of Zoology. In the Crustacea there are certain 

 species belonging to the order Ichthyophthira, living attached to 

 the eyes and gills of fish, in which the males never advance beyond 

 the embryonic stage, but pass a life of parasitism on the bodies of 

 their gigantic mates, which are sometimes two or three hundred 

 times their size. Even more extraordinary instances occur among 

 the Cirripeda, the females of some species having two diminutive 

 males as permanent retainers, snugly ensconced in depressions 

 within their shells. The disproportion of size in these instances, 

 however, sinks into insignificance in comparison with that of the 

 two sexes of Sphcmdaria — the males in the latter case being .from 

 twenty to thirty thousand times less than their " better halves !" 



I have, as yet, had no opportunity of examining bees during the 

 winter months, but according to Sir John Lubbock's observations, 

 the Entozoon may then be found very small and immature, 

 although in all cases in which he met with them from the middle 

 of December until February the union of the sexes had already 

 taken place. He states that the male was then somewhat more lively 

 both in appearance and reality than when met with in the spring. 

 " The female, however, far from being the comparatively gigantic 

 creature which she afterwards becomes, was actually shorter, 



