BEE CLEAB-WING. 
172 
tlie Agendas after tlie kinds to wliick they are 
thought to make the nearest approach. They fly 
during the heat of the day, many of them wth 
great rapidity, and alight upon the flowers from 
which they extract their nourishment. iUl of them 
are rather scarce insects in this country, with the 
exception of the little M. Tipuliformis, which is 
plentiful in gardens in many parts of England, but 
does not seem to come far north. The larvte, which 
are soft, fleshy, and of a pale colom, subsist on the 
pith and wood of trees and shrubs, in the interior 
of which they also undergo their metamorphosis. 
The cell is constructed so near the surface as to 
leave only a thin exterior covering, and when the 
chrysalis is matured, it pushes itself tlirough this 
frail barrier, chiefly by the aid of a series of fine 
spines on the abdomen inclining backwards, which 
serve, when the body is agitated, as a point of sup- 
port for advancing the head, which terminates in a 
point to make the perforation more easy. Trochi- 
lium is chiefly distinguished by the shortness of the 
proboscis and antennae, the latter being slightly 
serrated and termirmting in a tuft of hair ; by the 
transparency of the tip of the anterior wings, and 
the comparatively thick and robust body. ITie 
species named Apifm'tne (from its resembLanoe to 
a bee) is yellow on the head; the thorax brown, 
udth four yellow spots, the two anterior ones large 
and triangular, theposterior two smaller and rounded. 
The abdomen is yellow, ■with the first and fourth 
segments black and clothed ■with broivn pubescence, 
