442 Larval Habits of Bee-Fites. [June, 
pressly states that he did not observe upon what the larva fed; 
the inference which he draws is based upon the analogy of 
Anthrax, and he inferred that it was upon the larve of Colletes 
that the grub fed; quite a different thing from being a cuckoo in 
the nest and feeding only upon the pollen. There is, in Dufour’s 
paper, no evidence to prove that the Bombylius larva was found 
in the coccoons, or even in the cells of the bee; he states, in fact, 
that he failed to find it there, but found it among the clearings 
(déblais) which he had made in digging out the nests. Professor 
Westwood himself found numbers of Bombylius medius flying in 
association with a species of Andrena in the unpaved Forum Tri- 
angulare of Pompeii, and found at the same spot the pupa-shell 
of the fly protruding from the ground. 
As early as 1838, Macleay (Ann. N. H., Vol. n, p. 12), stated 
that he had “discovered that the larvz of those tropical Bombylii 
which have such a bee-like form live on the larve of the bees 
they so strikingly represent,” although he gives no particulars of 
his discovery. 
Dr. Morelet, in 1854, recorded the fact that he had obtained a 
Bombylius from a nest of Halictus succinctus (Bull. Soc. Ent. de 
France, 1854, p. XXIv). 
Dr. Packard (“ Guide,” &c., p. 397) states that “a species [of 
Bombylius] is known in England to lay its eggs at the opening of 
the holes of Andrena, whose larvz and pupz are devoured by the 
larve of the fly.” But no authority is given for this statement. 
Messrs. Allen and Underhill, in Scéence Gossip, 1875, P- 80, €X- 
press their belief that the Bombylii are parasitic on humble- 
bees. In the volume for 1876, p. 171, they say (speaking of 
Sitaris) : 
“In relation to the larva of this beetle, we would rem ark 
that this year we have found it clinging to Bombylii. This 
‘circumstantial evidence’ that Bombylii frequent the nests of aaa 
throphora to lay their eggs, since Sitaris itself, from its manner ° 
life, cannot be the parasite of a fly, but only of a bee.” 
Schmidt-Goebel, as Baron Osten Sacken has pointed out, reared 
one of the smaller unicolorous Bombylii from among the pup@ of 
Colletes fodiens (Stettiner Ent. Zeit., 1876, p. 393), which so in 
fested a clayey bank that he could not place his thumb any where 
without discovering an entrance to a burrow. 
Finally, Dr. T. Algernon Chapman (Ext. Monthly Mag, Feb, 
1 Entom. Monthly Mag., Feb., 1881, p. 206, 
