280 JUURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
and being coloured yellow, red, or black, with a distinct waist and a 
pubescent abdomen, they have an unusual resemblance to wasps 
which may be protective. In India they are often to be seen in the 
hills, but are not so common in the plains. Conops erythrocephala 
with a black abdomen and grey thorax and head is a widely distri- 
buted Indian species. Most species are elongated flies of moderate 
size and the ovipositor of the female is often conspicuous. In some 
cases it 1s folded beneath the abdomen, in others not. 
The parasitic life of the larva is passed, so far as is known by nearly 
all species, in the body of adult Hymenoptera, wasps and bees. Oc- 
casionally the larvae of this family are parasitic on Orthoptera.* In 
some cases the Conopid fly has been seen pursuing a wasp or bee and 
depositing eggs directly on its body during flight. When the larva 
emerges, it burrows into the abdomen of the bee or other host. It 
lives within the abdominal cavity of the host and feeds on the least 
vital parts, lying with its posterior end directed towards the base of 
the abdomen. It is an oval larva, distinctly segmented, with strong- 
ly bent mouth-hooklets at one end, and at the other, on the last 
segment, two large round stigmatic plates arched like watch-glasses. 
The larva pupates within the host and remains there during the winter. 
When the time arrives for the adult fly to emerge, it forces a way 
out between the abdominal segments. Whether this proves in all 
cases fatal to the unfortunate bee, appears not to be certainly known. t 
A number of cases are on record where collectors of Bombus and other 
bees or wasps, on opening the boxes in which their collections were 
stored have found specimens of Conopide which emerged sometimes 
over six months after the killing and pinning of the host. 
Regarded as types of parasitic lives, the lives of the larval Cono- 
pids are of special interest because they are the first family 
which are parasitic in the bodies of adult insects. In the previous 
dipterous families the larvae have been parasitic in the bodies of 
other larval insects. In the Conopide the adult Hymenopteron 
is parasitized by the larval Conopid. Whether the parasite must 
be more highly specialised successfully to deposit an egg upon an 
imago as distinguished from a larval host is a matter for considera- 
tion. It does not appear to be the case that insects which are 
highest in the evolutionary grade become parasitic on the higher types 
of host; and the Tachinide which come next in the methodus of 
dipterous parasites are insects whose parasitism is apparently always 
confined to the early stage of other insects. 
(To be continued.) 
* References to early observers from the time of Latreille (1809) will be found 
in Brauer’s paper (1883) Denks. Kais. Ak. der Wiss. Wien. Vol. 47. p 83. 
+ Some details on the life-history of a species of a Conops which is parasitic on a 
large Pompilus are given by Saunders “‘ Observations on the habits of the Dipte- 
rous genus Conops.”’ (1858) Trans. Ent. Soc. London N. 8. Vol 4. p. 285. 
