152 
COLEOPTERA. 
be, the history of the parasitic Stylops is most curious. 
The male, which is very unlike the female, is rather a 
pretty little insect, having a posterior pair of large 
membranous wings, which can fold up like a fan; the 
front-wings are rudimentary, forming a pair of slender- 
twisted appendages (hence the term Stepsiptera ), sup¬ 
posed to represent aborted wing-cases. The insects are 
a seldom more than a 
^^ sixth - of - an - inch 
long. The female 
is an oblong sac 
without legs or 
t 
wings; theheadand 
thorax is fused into 
a single flattened 
mass, the abdomen 
is of great size, re¬ 
minding one of that 
Stylops (natural size and magnified). of tllO white ailt ; 
it is the female which is parasitic upon various species 
of wild-bees, the bodies of which it never leaves. It 
buries itself up to its head in the body of the bee, 
between the abdominal segments, with the hinder part 
protruded, in which position it is visited by the male 
Stylops. As many as 200 or 300 of these female para¬ 
sites have been found in a single bee. The female is 
ovoviviparous, the larvae are hatched within the body of 
the mother; on leaving which they appear as little 
active six-footed creatures, which were once supposed to 
stand in the relation, not of children to parent, but as 
parasites on the Stylops parasite. After the larvae are 
born they attach themselves to the hairs of the body of 
