Stbepsipteka.- 



-INSECTS.- 



-Sttlops Wasp. 



201 



impregnating fluid contained in tlie receptacle is cut off 

 at pleasure by an instinctive act of tlie female in ovi- 

 position. The worker-bees, or females with undevel- 

 oped organs being incapable of impregnation, in the 

 rare cases in which their ovaries are sufficiently devel- 

 oped to mature a few eggs, these produce only male 

 brood." 



Mr. Smith remarks that " in the entire range of 

 the history of bees, nothing is to be met with, which 

 excites our astonishment so greatly as the manner in 

 which the Hive-bee is said to possess the power of 

 replacing the loss of their queen. Indeed, so contrary 

 is this to all our experience, that without a personal 

 confirmation of so remarkable a phenomenon, some 

 feeling of incredulity will force itself upon the mind, 

 and suggest the possibility of mistaken observation. 

 If the only thing necessary to jiroduce difference of sex 

 is difference of aliment, there must be some miscon- I 



ception or error in speaking of eggs of males, workers, 

 and females. No difference is to be observed in the 

 food of the solitary species of Hyraenoptera ; the larvje 

 of the sexes of the genus Pompilus feed upon spiders, 

 Diptera, or caterpillars ; one undeviating course is to be 

 observed ; the larvae of both sexes of Melitlohia alike 

 feed on that of Anthoj^liora ; the eggs deposited nearest 

 the entrance of a burrow invariably produce males, 

 which are the first that come forth ; this does not appear 

 to be dependent either upon thd quality or quantity of 

 food." 



Mr. Tegetmeier, in the year 1859, reared drones 

 from eggs deposited by worker-bees. To the writings 

 of that excellent apiarian and amiable, intelligent writer, 

 and to Bagster's book, and Bevans', and Kirby and 

 Spence, and Huber, and many another writer, I refer 

 the reader who wishes to know about the Bee. Books 

 will never exhaust the history of that wonderful insect. 



SuB-OEDEE — STREPSIPTERA. 



These insects form an order, either distinct from all 

 other orders, or they are Hymcnoptera, with a coleop- 

 terous aspect, while others might call them Coleoptera, 

 with a great resemblance to Hymenoptera. 



Many authors now place them with the Heteromera, 

 among the Coleoptera, near Sitaris, or the curious genus 

 Rhipidius, parasitic on the cockroach. Meanwhile we 

 may regard them, with Kirby, as a separate order. All 

 the Strepsiptera are of very small size, the largest, with 

 its wings expanded, not being a quarter of an inch in 

 width. The male only is winged ; the females are 

 gi-ub-hke insects, which never leave the bodies of the 

 bees. If the abdomens of a number of Amlrcnidce be 

 examined, it is most probable that the female of Stylops 

 will be found ; her presence is known by the protrusion 

 of her head and a portion of the thorax between the 

 abdominal segments on their superior surface, resem- 

 bling the point of a small bud of a brown colour, or 

 rather a flattened scale." The larvK of Stylops may 

 be bred by placing a bee infested by it in a small box 

 covered with gauze, and by supplying the bee with 

 fresh flowers, such as it frequents when at liberty. If 

 the bee be frequently examined it will probably be 

 found that in eight or ten days her abdomen will seem 

 as if covered with dust. This dust will be found to 

 consist of a number of exceedingly minute animals, 

 which are the larvjE of the Stylops. By applying a 

 magnifying glass to the transverse aperture on the 

 thorax, these minims will be seen to be issuing from it. 

 When the bee settles on flowers, many of these dust- 

 like animals are left on the flowers, and bees visiting 

 them are likely to have one or more of them attach 

 themselves to their bodies, and thus be carried into 

 their nests. Each female Stylops produces many hun- 

 dreds of these little larvae, and it is hence probable that 

 the majority of them perish in this larval condition, as 

 the perfect insect is comparatively rare. The reader is 

 referred to Mr. Newport's paper in the Transactions of 

 the Linnajan Society, vol. xx. for a full and illustrated 

 Vol. II. 



account of the anatomy, functions, and development of 

 Stylops. 



The late Mr. Newport paid great attention to the 

 history and development of the Strepsiptera ; the fol- 

 lowing is from his anniversary address at a meeting of 

 the Entomological Society — 



" The diminutive, parasitic Strepsiptera, the giant 

 of which scarcely exceeds one-fourth of an inch in 

 length, are of especial interest to this Society. Dis- 

 covered and first described by our venerable friend, 

 Mr. Kirby, we have adopted the Stylops as our emblem ; 

 any elucidation of its heretofore obscure natural history 

 must therefore be of particular interest to us. This 

 has been supplied by Dr. Siebold, who now shows that 

 the Strepsiptera undergo a singular metamoi-phosis ; 

 that the males and females differ from each other — the 

 metamorphosis of the males being complete, they alone 

 being furnished with wings ; the females, on the con- 

 trary, have neither legs, wings, nor eyes, and greatly 

 resemble larviE. These females are viviparous, and 

 never quit the bodies of the Hymenoptera, in which 

 they live as parasites. The young Strepsiptera, at the 

 moment that they burst the eggs in which they are 

 developed within the body of the parent, have six legs, 

 and are furnished with organs of nianducation. These 

 are the diminutive objects described in Mr. Westwood's 

 paper in a former volume of our Transactions as the 

 parasites of Stylops, and as such they were regarded 

 at first by King, and also by Dr. Siebold. These little 

 hexapodous larva; infest the surface of the abdomen of 

 bees, within which their parent mothers live and die. 

 In this way the young Stylops is carried into the nests 

 of the Hymenoptera, and, escaping on the bodies of the 

 larva;, penetrate their soft skins, and become parasites 

 on them, as their parents have been in the bodies of the 

 female bees. These larva; shed their skins, become 

 apodal, and move very slowlj-. They have then a 

 distinct mouth and jaws, and a simple coecal intestine, 

 but no anal aperture. The body is formed of nine 



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