68 Notes on a Species of Stylops. 



occasionally (which, however, I have only observed in the first 

 I caught) hovering at a few inches distant from the ground.* 

 When captured they are exceedingly active, running up and 

 down the sides of the bottle in which they are confined, moving 

 their wings and antennae very rapidly. Their term of life seems 

 to be very short, none of those I have captured living above five 

 hours ; and one I extracted from a bee in the afternoon, was 

 dead the next morning. 



All the stylopized bees, both $ and $, I have taken, have 

 manifested it by having underneath the fourth (invariably) upper 

 segment of the abdomen a protuberance, which is scale-like, 

 when the Stylops is in the larva state, but which is much larger 

 and more rounded when the Stylops is ready to emerge. A bee 

 gives nourishment generally to but one Stylops ; but 1 have occa- 

 sionally found two, and once three ! larvse in one bee. 



* Their expanse of wing and mode of flight give them a very different appear- 

 ance to any other insect on the wing. 



