APPENDICES. 351 
chrysaline stage, taking its long siesta in the comfortable cradle 
whose infant tenant it has devoured, and from which it event- 
ually comes boldly forth in all the pride of its winged and 
perfect state, walking out of the bee home as from its own 
proper abode, and attracting no notice whatever from the bees, 
in whose nursery it has performed the odious act of eating a 
baby bee, and appropriating its comfortable cradle cell, The 
stolid unconsciousness with which the bees allow this insect 
vampire to pass out and escape from the scene of his horrid 
proceedings with impunity, has induced some naturalists to 
believe that the carnivorous Volucella owes its safety to its 
complete disguise in the colouring of the bee, which is sup- 
posed to be so perfect as to deceive the bees themselves into 
the belief that these strangers are members of their own 
fraternity. Mr. Westwood, quoting Messrs. Kirby and Spence, 
in their admirable work, in which the habits and instincis of 
British insects were first classified and grouped together in a 
pleasantly readable form, makes the following statement on the 
likeness of the Volucella to the bee: “This similarity to the 
humble-bee is of eminent service to the insects which deposit 
their eggs in the nests of those bees, an admirable provision of 
Nature, since, as Messrs. Kirby and Spence observe, ‘did these 
intruders venture themselves among humble-bees in a less kin- 
dred form, their lives would probably pay the forfeit of their 
presumption.’” This statement, however, though appearing so 
plausible, is not borne out by analogy, there being many para- 
sites on bees which do not bear the slightest resemblance to the 
insects whose nests they invade. Not only are some of the 
Diptera, who deposit their eggs in the nests of bees, very unlike 
the bees whose homes they infest, but even the parasitic bees 
themselves do not always resemble the bees whose nests they 
appropriate. For instance, the species Hucera longicornis has 
a broad brownish body, without any conspicuous mark, while 
its parasitic relative, Vomada sex-fasciata, has the narrow body 
of a wasp, and, as its name implies, six conspicuous yellow 
bands on the abdomen, which, with the intermediate black 
spaces, make it a very distinct-looking creature indeed. 
In some of the exotic bees more especially, the distinct 
