46 Mr. S. S. Saunders's Description of 



seen to emanate from what had formerly been regarded as mere 

 abortive Strepsipterous larvae, under the influence of some other 

 parasitical attack, now require to be acknowledged as the true 

 lineal representatives of insects of this order, the perfect female 

 retaining the vermiform condition, and remaining encased in the 

 the body of the bee, into which, at an earlier period, the young 

 hexapod may have found means to insinuate itself, her cephalo- 

 thorax being the only part externally visible. 



In an early part of the Transactions of this Society,* Mr. 

 Westwood, in describing and figuring some of these hitherto sup- 

 posed hexapod parasites upon the Strepsiptera, appended a note 

 to his remarks, suggesting " that the individuals producing these 

 minute parasites might be females, and the parasites their 

 young, " which Dr. Siebold's observations have served to con- 

 firm ; and Mr. Newport has since illustrated, with inimitable 

 precision, the whole series of changes which " take place in the 

 ovum within the body of the female Stylops herself, contained 

 within that of the beef" It may indeed be observed, that the 

 primary question as to the origin of these ova, is not hereby en- 

 tirely set at rest; nor is the distension progressively acquired by 

 such ova of unexampled occurrence, as it is recorded also among 

 the Tenthredinidce and Cynipidce ; neither does it appear that their 

 presence has ever been detected in any vermiform Strepsipterous 

 insect obtained from a bee not taken at large, whereby the pos- 

 sibility of extraneous ovi-position (considering also the previous 

 seclusion of the internal-feeding larva within the body of the bee) 

 would be absolutely negatived ; but the circumstantial evidence 

 affecting the relations of these hexapods with the Strepsiptera is 

 so convincing, and the conditions essential to their future main- 

 tenance and propagation — involved in the exploded theory of 

 their hyper-parasitic character — have been so nearly reduced to 

 an argumentum ad absurdum by Mr. West wood, % that no reason- 

 able doubt can be entertained upon this point. 



These never-to-be-emancipated females, in their apodal apte- 

 rous imago- form, destitute also of visual organization and an- 

 tennae, wherewith their more favoured partners are so munifi- 

 cently endowed, may be recognized by the depressed condition 

 of the exserted cephalo-thorax, which is but slightly concavo- 

 convex, and usually of a paler colour than the distended conical 



* Vol.2, p. 187. 



t Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xx. p. 339. 



X Westwood's Introd. &c. vol. 2, p. 303. 



