164 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



have been closely followed up from early morn to " dewy 

 eve," and recorded with a precision rarely, if ever, surpassed ; 

 thus affording an admirable illustration how lime may be 

 stolen, as it were, for such objects, from other vocations, by 

 activity and perseverance. 



An interesting account of the habits and metamorphoses 

 of a new species of Sitaris (S. Colletes), parasitic, as its 

 name implies, on a species of Colletes (C. succincta, L.), 

 has been given by M. Valery Mayet in the 'Annales' of 

 the French Entomological Society (Ser. 5, tome v., 1875), 

 with two plates exhibiting the various stages of both 

 these insects, from larva to imago ; and of Epeolus 

 tristis, Sm., obtained from the cells of this Colletes. 

 The primitive larva of the aforesaid Sitaris, as carefully 

 described and delineated in this memoir, is furnished with 

 triunguiculate tarsal claws, like that of Meloe ; whereas, in 

 M. Fabre's remarkable life-history of Sitaris humeralis, the 

 tarsi of the latter, in this stage, are represented as terminating 

 in a single powerful claw {un ongle puissant, long, aigu, et 

 ires mobile). The young larva of S. Colletes is supplied 

 with a caudal apparatus {(ippareil Jixateur, V. M.), consisting 

 of two upcurved spiked appendages attached to the base of 

 the eighth abdominal segment on the dorsal region, having 

 a simultaneous action up and down, between which are two 

 tubular processes emanating from a superincumbent plate, 

 and directed backwards, from whence filaments issue from 

 time to time when the larva desires to affix itself to a hair of 

 the bee or other object. Fabre, however, appears to consider 

 such filaments, in the larva of S. humeralis, as ordinary 

 caudal setae, which he describes as attached to the exterior 

 margin of the ninth abdominal segment [I.e., p. 310). The 

 Colletes-egg is readily accessible to the young Sitaris, not 

 being deposited by the bee, as in the cells of Anthophora, 

 upon the honey-store itself, but affixed above this to the wall 

 of the cell, whereby the difficulty and danger to be incurred 

 in reaching the same, and the necessity of effecting this 

 manoeuvre at the moment of oviposition, are avoided. As 

 this Colletes constructs her cells and deposits her eggs in the 

 autumn, the Sitaris-larvae, soon alter their birlh, attach them- 

 selves to their victims, instead of remaining, like those of 

 S. humeralis, seven months fasting in suspense, from the end 



