— 209 — 



Réaumur, IV, -p 440) (1) that, acciistomed as I am to see bees, 

 I harclly ever dared to take oue of those ilies in my liaud 



witliont hesitation The colonrs, the size, the coiiformation 



and the proportions of the difFerent parts of the body of 

 these two insects, belonging to two difFerent Orders, are very 

 mnch alike. The bees have a slightly more elongated body, 

 and their head is proportionally smaller. The ily keeps the 

 wings more or less divaricated; on the contrary bees at rest 

 keep them above the abdomen, the one covering the other; 

 bnt in siicking flowers, or collecting wax, they often have them 

 divaricated. Both insects frequent flowers and behave upon 

 them in more or less the sanie manner » eto. 



Here is another testimony from a person who, without 

 any pr^àous acquaintance with E. tenax, was struck by its 

 resemblance to a bee; he writes to the Entomological Division 

 of the Dep/ of Agric. in "Washington: « I send a cage of 

 insects which made their advent in onr green-house with 

 the blooming of Farfagium grande^ in the economy of which 

 flower they are apparently in some manner concerned. They 

 act like bees, and greatly resemble them, not only in the busy 

 way in which they work among the flowers, bnt in the way 

 they fly, and carry their hind legs imitating the poUen-freigh- 

 ted limbs of the bee. Ali whose attention I have called to them, 

 or to whom I have shown the insects, mistake them for 

 honey-bees. — They evidently fuLfil the same office, with rela- 

 tion to the composite above-mentioned, as the honey-bee, of 

 which they are such a good imitation. » (Ernest Walker, 

 Indiana, Oct. 27, 1892; in « Insect-Life », Jan. 1893, p. 200), 



The colouring of the abdomen of the honey-bees is variable; 

 some varieties have very distinct brownish-yellow crossbands 



(1) There is an evideat error in Rèaumur, 1. e. iu the reference to the piate XXXI 

 iìg. 8. The true E. tenax is representecl (rather indifferently) on PI. XX. f. 7; compare 

 the explanation of this iigure on p. 283, Mouche en forme d'abeille etc. Piate XXXI, 

 f. 8 is correctly qiToted 1. e. p. 474 and represents Eristalis arbustoruin Q, or some 

 allied species. 



Anno XXV. 14 



