1802 Insects. 



very day it occurred, I went to several places which I had previously 

 known to be favourite resorts of Meloe, and there I found the flowers 

 of the dandelion covered with the same creatures, and I captured on 

 the flowers no less than eighty-five specimens of Panurgus ursinus — 

 a bee then new to me, — the whole of which were infested with this 

 parasite, two, three, four, or five on each : I compared those taken 

 from the bees and those bred by myself, and found them absolutely 

 identical. This larva is proportionately longer, and more linear than 

 those of Sitaris and Symbius ; the antennae, legs, and caudal setae are 

 longer ; the head and thoracic segments are more distinct. When on 

 the body of the bee, these little larvae nestle among the hairs pre- 

 cisely in the same way as those of Stylops, and consequently are in 

 this position conveyed into the nest of the bee whenever she returns 

 home. This attachment to the bee seems for conveyance only, as re- 

 marked by Mr. Newport (Zool. 1241), to whom we are indebted for 

 the knowledge we possess of its subsequent history. It appears, that 

 after entering the nest of the bee this little creature, like the foetal 

 Stylops, undergoes a metamorphosis ; it loses its legs, its slender, 

 elongate figure, and its activity, and becomes a large, white, fleshy, 

 apod maggot, bearing no resemblance whatever to the earlier stage of 

 its own existence. It is not supposed that this larva, now larger than 

 that of the bee, can feed within the latter : it were more rational to 

 believe that it devours the provisions provided by the parent-bee for 

 her progeny. 



The foetal larvae of Cantharis and Lytta are said to resemble that of 

 Meloe : that of the very common Bipiphorus paradoxus must be re- 

 ferred to the same family, and it is a matter of regret that the history 

 of this well-known parasite of the wasp has never been traced : all 

 that we know, is, that the perfect insects emerge from the cells 

 of wasps in the same manner as the wasps themselves, a fact, which, 

 combined with its structure, compel us to refer it to this tribe of pa- 

 rasites. 



Now, confining our attention to three species, Stylops Melittae, 

 Sitaris humeralis, and Meloe Proscarabaeus, and abandoning for the 

 present, all notice of others apparently allied, but whose economy has 

 not yet been ascertained ; we find they all possess a foetal metamor- 

 phosis, i. e., the larva is hatched under an abnormal or incomplete 

 form, a form in which it is unable to eat or grow ; and which appears 

 only designed to exist until a transit has been achieved by adven- 

 titious circumstances to a locality whence it can eat and grow, and 

 follow out its subsequent metamorphoses. The enormous number of 



