286 Mr. S. S. Saunders on the Llubits of the 



ing observations made by M. Robineau Desvoidy on the pro- 

 ceedings of a Conops auripes in overawing or fascinating a Bombiis 

 for the supposed purpose of depositing its eggs ; stating also that 

 a young naturalist had obtained one of these insects from a box 

 wherein he had inclosed several " living Bombi." From this 

 statement, resting upon indirect authority, it does not clearly 

 appear that the Conops was actually produced from a live Bombus. 

 In the other instance the Conops was observed to alight momen- 

 tarily seven or eight times upon the Bombus, without any re- 

 sistance or attempt to escape on the part of the latter, the result 

 however not lieing ascertained, the Conops alone having been 

 captured on the occasion. 



In the "Annales des Sciences Naturelles" for January, 1837, 

 M. Leon Dufour describes and figures an apod larva which he 

 had found in the Bombus terreslris, and which he considered 

 different from that of Messrs. Audoiiin and Lachat. He also 

 states that he had often witnessed the ardour with which the Conops 

 pursued the Bombus " pour inserer ses oeufs dans ses entrailles;" 

 and that he possessed in his collection a Bombus terrestris from 

 the anal region of which a Conops riifpes was dependent, the dis- 

 tended extren)ity of whose abdomen liad been retained within the 

 ventral cavity of the Bombus ; but he adds — " Quelle est la larva 

 qui produii ce Conops? On ne nous I'a point appris." 



Mr. Curtis, in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society for 

 January, 1855,* while calling attention to the want o^ information 

 as to " the economy of this beautiful genus of flies," mentions the 

 circumstance of a Conops Jlavipes having "been bred from the 

 body of an Osniia, which had nidified in bramble stems." 



The details which I am now about to supply, of the larva and 

 pupa of a species of Conops reared from a large Fompilas (P. audax, 

 Smith, Mus. Brit. Cat.), — specimens of which, together with the 

 parasitic pupa and imago in situ, and the larvae in spirits, are now 

 submitted to inspection, — will serve to confirm the impression 

 entertained by Latreille as to the nature of the apod larva 

 described by Messrs. Audouin and Lachat; and thus definitively 

 connect the anatomical details of that larva, so carefully elaborated, 

 with the history of the genus Conops. 



The Pomjnlus, subjected to the attacks of this parasite, is not 

 unfrequently met with early in the month of August on some parts 

 of the coast of Epirus, frequenting the flowers of a species of 



* 1 rans. Ent. Soe. Lond., N. S., vol. 3, Proc. cxvi. 



