THE STREPSIPTERA. 389 



body of the bee, and is nourished by its juices. The head and 

 thorax of the parasite were noticed to be soldered into a single 

 flattened mass, the baggy hind body being greatly enlarged like 

 that of the female white ant. On carefully drawing out the whole 

 body from the bee the mass was found to be very extensible, soft, 

 and baggy, and on examining it under a high power of the 

 microscope, multitudes of very minute larvae were observed, and 

 they began to issue out from the body of the parent all alive, and 

 not as eggs. The male of this Stylops childrcni is totally unlike 

 its partner, having large hind wings, and being able to fly, as has 

 already been noticed. It appears, then, that the larvze are hatched 

 or crawl out of the body of the mother on to the body of the 

 bee, and are then transported to its nest. Then they enter the 

 body of the bee larva, and live upon its fatty matter. The male 

 Stylops is turned into a pupa within the bee, and so is the female ; 

 but after the second metamorphosis the male flies off, leaving his 

 wingless partner imprisoned for life, and she usually dies imme- 

 diately after giving birth to her myriad offspring (Packard). 

 The female respires by peculiarly arranged tracheae, and absorbs 

 nourishment through her skin as well as by means of an alimen- 

 tary canal which ends in a blind sac. All the beauties of the 

 female, so far as they are visible to the male, consist in the tiny 

 patch which appears just without the body of the unfortunate bee, 

 and the ova collect in a space which opens between the united 

 head and body and the abdomen. The front wings of the male 

 are analogous to the elytra of beetles, and the correct zoological 

 position of the insect is probably close to Meloe and Siiaris 

 amongst the Colcoptcra. 



