COLEOPTERA. | 495 
to Meloé. In the larva state, all the known species of the family 
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 humble bees,* 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 imagos, which are of small size, namely, about the eighth 
of an inch long, are found during May and June. They have 
four wings, but the anterior pair of hard texture, somewhat re- 
sembling elytra, but hardly answering to them in structure, are 
very poorly developed, and curled round the front pair of legs ; 
hence the name bestowed by Kirby, from ozpepous, a twisting, and 
mrepov, a Wing; the posterior wings are fully developed, and fold 
up like a fan, whence the Order received the name of [hipiptera 
from Latreille. The eyes, the facettes of which are few in number, 
are placed on a foot-stalk, whence the name of the genus Stylops. 
The parts of the mouth connect the Strepsiptera with the mandi- 
bulated insects, although by some supposed to bear analogy by 
their functions to those parts in the Diptera. The male only is 
winged; the female is very like an apodal larva, the larva being 
an active hexapod. 
The family Stylopide is divided into four 
genera, of which two only, Xenos and Sty- 
lops, were described by Kirby in the essay Wea 
referred to above. First, Xenos, from €evos, fe S \ ay 
a guest, the most prolific in species, of Fin Gio 
which Xenos Rossii, sometimes called ves- (aagnified). 
parum, may be taken.as the type. Secondly, Hlenchus, of which 
Elenchus Walkeri is the type. Thirdly, Stylops (Fig. 542), para- 
* See p. 68. . 

