BEE PARASITES. 



117 



from side to side. It looked like a little imp of darkness just 

 emerging from the infernal regions." 



The above description will serve to give the reader a pretty good 

 idea of the mode in which these insects are to be found, for they 

 are all parasitic upon different species of bees and wasps ; but the 

 venerable and distinguished discoverer of these strange insects 

 was in error in describing the soft, grub-like creature which he 

 first pulled out of the body of the bee as the larva, it being in 

 reality the female, and the little " imp of darkness," whose 

 emergence is so graphically described, is the male Stylops. 



J 



\^i 



FIG. 116. a, b, FEMALE; d, PITA; e, MALE OF STYLOPS. 



The true larva, a soft, maggot-like creature, resides in the inte- 

 rior of the grub of the bee, and in the interior of the bee itself, 

 until it has attained its full size, when it undergoes a certain 

 amount of change : the anterior portion of its body acquires a 

 horny consistency, and is pushed out between the segments of 

 the bee's abdomen, forming those little flattened bodies that first 

 arreste 1 Mr. Kirby's attention, and which may frequently be found 

 upon the surface of our early bees (Andrana). This is the only 

 change to which the females are subject, but the males become 

 converted into true pupse within the skin of the larva, and thus 

 lie sheltered within the body of their victim, and separated from 

 the outer world by the small horny plate with which their old 

 integument is surmounted. 



But the time soon arrives when the delicate male insect is to 

 seek his mate ; the horny cap gives way, and he emerges into light 

 and air. A curious little fellow he is, but not without considerable 

 pretensions to elegance in his appearance. The female, to whom 

 this elegant, volatile, and active creature is incessant in his devo- 

 tions, is as different in appearance from her mate as can well be 

 imagined. As already stated, she resembles a soft fleshy maggot, 

 without the least trace of wings or limbs, and furnished anteriorly 



