INSECTS. 



205 



Fig. 199. — Bee-parasite (Xenos), male and fe- 

 male : a, the fore wings. 



on the other hand, are little footless grub-like forms, which no one who 

 did not know the history would suspect were adults. The males can fly 

 freely, but the females spend their lives 

 as parasites in the abdomens of bees, 

 the head alone protruding between the 

 segments, as shown in the adjacent fig- 

 ure, in which the dotted outline indi- 

 cates the extent of the body of the 

 female Stylops. The eggs of the Stylops 

 hatch inside the mother, and then es- 

 cape and run freely about the hive 

 until they have a chance to climb on 

 to some bee-larva, and the}* there pupate and retain their position until 

 the bee-larva becomes the perfect insect. 



The so-called death-tick may be taken as the 

 representative of another group of beetles but re- 

 motely related to those which have preceded. It 

 receives its name from the peculiar ticking noise 

 which it makes, which is regarded by the supersl i- 

 tious as foreboding death or disaster. The beetle 

 is a small, dark-colored form scarcely a quarter of 

 an inch in length, and it produces its noise by 

 pounding against some object with its head. The 

 writer once saw one upon a roll of paper, pound- 

 ing away, and as this formed an excellent sounding- 

 board, the noise was far more distinct than usual. 

 fig. 200.— Abdomen of a bee, show- The beetle would pound, say a dozen times, as 



ing, in dotted outline, the posi- i i it • n l . • i 



tion which the female styiops regularly and about as rapidly as a watch ticks, 



occupies within the body of the ,i •, ' -i i i i i 



host, the head alone projecting then it would pause several seconds and again 



between the segments; below, ,i • Af .-> • ,• i • 



the female extracted. repeat the noise. (Ji course this ticking cannot 



have the slightest connection with human affairs ; 

 it is rather a signal by which the insect calls for its mate. 



Allied to the death-tick are any number of injurious beetles, which will 

 feed upon substances which are usually rejected by insects. Some will eat 

 tobacco, capsicum, and drugs of various sorts, which would quickly kill 

 other beetles, and do not appear in the least to surfer by the strange diet. 

 One of these forms which does considerable damage in woolen goods and 

 in museum collections is represented in the centre of Figure 208, on a suit- 

 sequent page. 



One will frequently find upon flowers in the summer numbers of pretty 

 beetles having a general resemblance to the species here figured. They 



