1881. ] Larval Habits of Bee-Fites. 443 
1878, p. 196), as shown in the February number of the NATURAL- 
IsT, gives abundant proof of the parasitism of Bombylius major on 
Andrena labialts. 
From these records of European observations, it is sufficiently 
certain that some of the Bombyliids develop in the cells of ma- 
son and burrowing bees, but whether as true parasites on the 
larvee of the bees or as partial parasites on the pollen-paste 
stored up by the same, as in the case of the larvae of some of the 
Meloids, does not seem to have been observed. The former is 
most probably the case, however, for it has been clearly ascer- 
tained, and is well known, that Anthrax feeds in the larva state 
upon the young of certain bees. The larva of the Anthrax be- 
fore attaining its own full growth and before destroying its host must 
await the full growth of the latter, as it has, by several observers, 
been bred from the cocoons of the insects upon which it was 
parasitic. 
In his “Western Diptera” (J. c. p. 243) Baron Osten Sacken 
Bives references to the published account of the parasitism of the 
Anthracid genus Argyramceba within the nests of Cemonus and 
Chalicidoma ; cites Schiner’s statement that the larve live parasiti- 
cally in pupz of Lepidoptera, and records the breeding of A. 
cephus and A. fur from the nest of a Texan mud-wasp, which he 
referred, with a question, to Pelopceus, but which, as we have 
ascertained from an examination of the mud tubes which are de- 
posited in the Cambridge Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, 
belong to Trypoxylon. We have similar cells from Texas and 
other parts of the South. They differ from those of Pelopceus 
in being wider, ribbed on the upper surface, and fastened not 
only side by side, but in long tubes, end to end. The Pelopceus 
spins a thin, yielding, semitransparent, elongate cocoon of a 
golden-brown color, with more or less loose silk around it, and 
the tail end thickened and docked; the Trypoxylon spins a 
tougher, thicker, more solid and smooth cocoon of a dull, dark- 
brown color, generally about half as long as the other (but vary- 
'N§ greatly in size), and with the head-end often expanding into 
a flange, 
We have reared what is very near to and probably identical 
with Argyrameba fur from larve that had preyed on Typoxylon. 
albitarse which had made use of the mud’ cells of Pélopaus 
lunatus, or the common mud-dab, in Texas; also from the same 
