The Bumble-Bee Fly 



concern ourselves only with the most remark- 

 able, in the front rank of which stands the 

 Bumble-bee Fly. 



She is a gorgeous and powerful Fly; and 

 her costume, with its brown and yellow bands, 

 shows a vague resemblance to that of the 

 Wasps. Our fashionable theorists have 

 availed themselves of this brown and yellow 

 to cite the Volucella as a striking instance of 

 protective mimicry. Obliged, if not on her 

 own behalf, at least on that of her family, to 

 introduce herself as a parasite into the Wasp's 

 home, she resorts, they tell us, to trickery and 

 craftily dons her victim's livery. Once inside 

 the Wasps' nest, she is taken for one of the 

 inhabitants and attends quietly to her business. 



The simplicity of the Wasp, duped by a 

 very clumsy imitation of her garb, and the de- 

 pravity of the Fly, concealing her identity 

 under a counterfeit presentment, exceed the 

 limits of my credulity. The Wasp is not so 

 silly nor the Volucella so clever as we are as- 

 sured. If the latter really meant to deceive 

 the Wasp by her appearance, we must admit 

 that her disguise is none too successful. Yel- 

 low sashes round the abdomen do not make a 

 Wasp. It would need more than that and, 

 above all, a slender figure and a nimble 



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