THE HAIR WOKM PARASITE. 



47 



croscopical, tadpole-shaped young penetrate into the bodies of 

 insects frequenting damp localities. Fairly ensconced witliin the 

 body of their unsuspecting host, they luxuriate on its fatty tis- 

 sues, and pass through their metamorphoses into the adult form, 

 when they desert their living house and take to the water to lay 

 their eggs. In Europe, Siebold has described Gordius subbifur- 

 cus, which infests the drones of the Honey bee, and also other 

 Insects. Professor Siebold has also described Mermis albicans, 

 which is a similar kind of hair worm, from two to five inches 

 long, and whitish in color. This worm is also found, strangely 

 enough, only in the drones, though it is the workers which fre- 

 quent watery places to appease their thirst. 



Thousands of insects are carried off yearly by parasitic fungi. 

 The ravages of the Muscardine, caused by a minute fungus 

 (BotrytrisBassiana), havethi'eat- 

 ened the extinction of silk cul- 

 ture in Europe, and the still 

 more formidable disease called 

 pebrine is thought to be of veg- 

 etable origin. Dr. Leidy men- 

 tions a fungus which must annu- 

 ally carry off myriads of the 

 Seventeen Year Locust. A some- 

 what similar fungus, Mucor mel- 

 litophorus (Fig. 41), infests 

 bees, filling the stomach with 

 microscopical colorless spores, 

 so as greatly to weaken the in- 

 sect. 



As there is a probability that 

 many insects, parasites on the 

 wild bees, may sooner or later afllict the Honey bee, and also to 

 illustrate farther the complex nature of insect parasitism, we 

 will for a moment look at some other bee parasites. 



Among the numerous insects preying in some way upon the 

 Humble bee are to be found other species of bees and moths, 

 flies and beetles. Insect parasites often imitate their host: 

 Apathus (Plate 1. Fig. 1, A. Ashtoni) can scarcely be distin- 

 guished from its host, and yet it lives cuckoo-like in the cells 

 of the Humble bee, though we know not yet how injurious it 

 really is. Then there are Conops and Volucella, the former 



Bee fungus. 



