Two new Strepsipterous Insects. 43 



VIII. Descriptions of two new Strepsipterous Insects from 

 Albania, parasitical on Bees of the Genus Hylseus; with 

 some Account of their Habits and Metamorphoses. By 

 S. S. Saunders, Esq. 



[Read 1st April, 1850.] 



Much insight has gradually been obtained, especially during late 

 years, into the singular economy of the Slrepsiptera, which has 

 formed the subject of several interesting notices in the Transactions 

 of this Society, followed by many important facts recorded by 

 Dr. Siebold of Erlangen,* by an elaborate paper, accompanied by 

 microscopic details of extreme nicety, contributed by Mr. George 

 Newport to the Transactions of the Linnaean Society (vol. xx. 

 part 2, 1847), by critical disquisitions on their affinities by Mr. 

 Newman, published in the Zoologist, &c. ; and in adding to the 

 list of this pigmy tribe, two new species, reared from the bodies 

 of bees, of the genus Hylceus of Latreille (Prosopis of Jurine), 

 I avail myself of the opportunity which presents itself, to offer 

 some remarks on their eventful history and extraordinary career. 



The first of these species I obtained from a large oak-gall, 

 which, being tenanted by some Hymenopterous larvae, I had 

 placed in a box, where it remained forgotten until autumn, when, 

 I observed, among several specimens of Hylceus, which had been 

 produced and died in the interim, some exhibiting abdominal pro- 

 tuberances, caused by the presence of Strepsipterous insects, 

 still shrouded in their pupa envelopes, having perished in situ, 

 although ready to burst forth in the imago state. 



The following year my endeavours to obtain more of the Hylcei 

 from oak-galls proved ineffectual ; but knowing that these bees 

 also nidificated in briars, I collected a quantity of briar-snags, 

 and on the 2Sth of May, having examined some of the cells, 

 I selected from among their occupants five already-formed pupae, 

 the remainder being still in the larva state ; of these pupae three 

 completed their transformations after the lapse of two days, when 

 1 had the satisfaction of perceiving that each of the bees then 

 produced presented the usual parasitical phenomena, not pre- 

 viously apparent ; and the next morning, on placing them in a phial 

 accessible to the sun, two of the winged parasites — smaller than 

 those previously obtained from the Hylceus of the gall — speedily 



* la Weigmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschichte, 1843. 



