6776 



Entomological Society. 



other reminded me more than anything else of a ' dissolving view.' First, there was 

 a distinct picture in the shape of a white, fat larva ; presently an obscurity began to 

 extend itself over the picture, gradually becoming more and more dense, and after a 

 while as gradually clearing away, when an entire change was found to have taken 

 place ; and instead of a white, fat larva, there was to be seen an amber-coloured object, 

 in shape much like a coffee-berry, loosely enveloped in a semi-transparent covering. 

 Having removed several of these coverings, and examined them with the aid of a 

 powerful lens, they appear to me to be the skins of bee larva?, and if so, it is clear the 

 Sitaris larva must feed upon the body of the bee larva, living and undergoing its 

 changes inside the latter. 



" I obtained a considerable number of pupa?, which were found in groups, each 

 group consisting of from three or four to ten or twelve, and each pupa occupying a cell 

 of the bee upon which the insect is parasitic. 



" The perfect insects make their way out of the cells in which they have been bred by 

 gnawing away the mortar or dirt of whch they are composed. The females, on emerging, 

 station themselves just outside the cells they have quitted, and there await the coming 

 of the males. They are not iu general long without a partner, for by some curious 

 arrangement they mostly contrive to emerge in pairs. Copulation takes place without 

 loss of time, and in a brief space (generally not longer than three or four minutes) 

 impregnation is effected, and the female, without removing from the situation she has 

 been occupying, proceeds to deposit her eggs. They are deposited in immense masses, 

 sometimes in the roof of the cell she has just vacated, or if not there, then in some con- 

 venient cranny or crevice immediately adjoining. 



" I have observed many instances of females dying, apparently of exhaustion, 

 before they had completed the task of depositing their eggs ; and in any case they 

 appear to survive its accomplishment but a very brief period. The males also appear 

 to be almost as short-lived as the females. 



" Nature would seem to have given these creatures wings merely by way of orna- 

 ment, for I have never seen either sex make the least attempt to use them, aerial exer- 

 cise being a thing they seem never to dream of taking ; indeed, they appear to be of 

 the most sluggish habits, rarely, if ever, quitting the wall in which their whole life has 

 peen passed, but to it they cling with amazing tenacity, and it requires some degree 

 of force to compel them to loose their hold." 



Mr. Smith observed that having examined the " semi-transparent coverings " 

 alluded toby Mr. Stone, which that gentleman had forwarded to him, he was of opinion 

 that they were not the skins of bee larvae, as supposed by Mr. Stone, but the cast skins 

 of the larva? of Sitaris. 



Mr. Lubbock said that M. Fabre had recently published, in the * Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles,' an interesting account of the habits and metamorphoses of Sitaris. 

 After much trouble he convinced himself that the active little hexapod larva, after fixing 

 itself to the body of the bee, patiently awaits the deposition of an egg, at which moment 

 it quits the bee and attaches itself to the fresh-laid egg. After devouring the yolk it 

 swims about for awhile in the empty egg-shell, and then, after undergoing the first 

 metamorphosis, commences to eat up the honey. M. Fabre is so excellent an observer, 

 and his paper is evidently written with so much care, that this statement is pro- 

 bably correct, in which case Mr. Stone must be wrong in supposing that the Sitaris 

 larva feeds on the body of the bee larva. Mr. Stone will be doing good service 

 to Entomology if he is able, in a future season, to confirm the interesting observa- 

 tions made by M. Fabre. 



