216 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
North America. Mutlla Europea is by no means an uncommon 
insect ; the male is of a deep blue colour, has a red thorax, with 
dusky wings, the margins of the first segments of the abdomen 
being ornamented with silky hairs of a silver grey. The female 
is black, its thorax is red, and it has three grey bands on the 
first three rings of the body. The females are found in woods, 
walking slowly upon the earth, and they may be seen entering 
Mutilla Europea. 
holes in the earth, but nothing is satisfactorily known concerning 
what they do there. 
In the engraving the male is represented flying, and the 
females, which are without wings, are crawling over the ground, 
coming out of a hole, and crawling upon a leaf. 
One author has satisfied himself that the females visit the 
nests of large humble bees, and this assertion has caused them 
to be considered the mothers of parasites, but several naturalists 
have seen them attacking insects, and others have taken them in 
their holes, where the remains of grasshoppers and of flies were 
found, and these relics have been considered the leavings of the 
