114 BRITISH BEES. 



the bee and ride about, the latter using every effort to 

 throw his rider. 



"As the Stylops emerges from the body of the bee, the 

 latter seems to suffer from much irritating excitement." 



Mr. Thwaites writes to me, on the 12th May, thus : 

 " I had the good fortune to capture a Stylops flying, and 

 on the Tuesday following saw at least twenty flying 

 about in the garden, but so high from the ground that I 

 could capture only about half-a-dozen ; since that time 

 they have become gradually more scarce. 



" The little animals are exceedingly graceful in their 

 flight, taking long sweeps as if carried along by a gentle 

 breeze, and occasionally hovering at a few inches distance 

 from the ground. Their expanse of wing and mode of 

 flight give them a very different appearance to any other 

 insect on the wing. 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 beyond five hours, 

 and one I extracted from a bee in the afternoon was 

 dead the next morning. 



"All the bees stylopized, both male and female, I 

 have taken, have manifested it by having underneath the 

 fourth (invariably) upper segment of the abdomen a pro- 

 tuberance 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 nourish- 

 ment generally to but one Stylops; but I have occasionally 

 found two, and once three larvse in one bee." 



The structure of these insects is very remarkable : the 

 typical genus Stylops is named from its compound eyes, 

 which consist of a very few (about fifteen) hexagonal 



