274 
BRITISH BEETLES. 
very large and ample liind wings, which are fan-shaped 
and hyaline, and longitudinally folded ; the mouth 
parts are metagnatlious, or adapted in the larva for 
biting, and in the imago for sucking ; the mandibles 
are reduced, the maxillae connate with the labium, 
and their palpi two-jointed. The female is blind, vermi- 
form, and Dever quits the bee on which it is parasitic ; 
the larvae, as in Meloe, have a double form ; on being 
hatched, they are carried by a bee or wasp to its nest, 
where they bore into a grub, and are transformed from 
their former more active condition to sluggish footless 
vermiform larvae ; the species are all small in size, 
the largest not being a quarter of an inch long ; the 
tarsi have from two to four joints, and the antennae 
are often forked or branched. 
We possess three British genera, Stylops, Halicto- 
phagus, and Elcnclius ; in the first of these the 
antennae have six joints, and the tarsi four ; in the 
second the antennae have seven joints, and the tarsi 
three ; while in the third the number of joints is five 
and two respectively. Stylops is not uncommon, at 
least the female ; the male is very seldom met with, 
but has been taken in some numbers on the wing near 
London ; it flies, apparently, in the early morning, 
with a very elegant undulating motion ; Mr. Dale, in 
recording his capture of a specimen flying in the hot 
sunshine over a quick-set hedge in his garden at Glan- 
villes Wootton, Dorset, says “it looked milk-white on 
the wing, with a jet-black body, and totally unlike 
anything else ; it flew with an undulating or vacillat- 
ing motion amongst the young shoots, and I could 
not catch it until it had settled on one, when it ran 
up and down, its wings in motion, and making a con- 
