VIII. 

 STREPSIPTEKA. 



THIS is the most anomalous of all the Orders of insects, and was 

 first constituted, and its characters given by Kirby,* although 

 Rossi was in truth the first discoverer. The species with which . 

 the latter first became acquainted, called after him Xenos Rossii, 

 he considered to belong to the Hymenoptera, to which these insects 

 do bear affinities, and placed it next to the Ichneumon on account 

 of its parasitical habits. In the larva state, all the known species 

 of the Order inhabit the bodies of Hymenopterous insects of the 

 genera Andrena, Polistes, &c., in this particular resembling the 

 Dipterous genus Conops, which inhabits the body of a bee,f and 

 apparently in no way inconveniencing their victims ; a fact which 

 has been accounted for on the supposition that their existence in 

 the larva state is but short, and that their attacks being directed 

 against the abdomen and not the thorax, the seat of life in insects, 

 their presence does not affect the activity of the victim. The larva 

 has a soft fusiform body, surmounted by a somewhat globose head. 

 "While feeding, the head is towards the base of the abdomen ; but 

 on changing to a pupa, this position is reversed, and the head 

 at first of light brown, but which after a short time becomes 

 black thrust out between the plates of the abdomen. 



The images, which are of small size, namely, about the eighth 

 of an inch long, are found during August and September. They 

 have four wings, but the anterior pair of hard texture, somewhat 

 resembling elytra, but hardly answering to them in structure, 

 are very poorly developed, and curled round the front pair of legs ; 



* On a new Order of Insects, " Linn. Trans., "vol. xi. f See page 68. 



