APATHUS. 
305 
closely, or nearly so, resembling its sitos, if not al¬ 
ways in colour, certainly in habit. Having no labours 
to undergo they consist of merely males and females, 
but the latter, although very like the large female Bombi, 
are much less pubescent than these, for they have a broad 
disk, upon the upper surface of the abdomen, always 
smooth and shining. Both sexes appear to have free 
in- and egress to the nests of those Bombi which they 
infest, without any let or hindrance on the part of the 
latter, with whom they seem to dwell in perfect amity. 
In the times of their appearance they closely resemble 
the Halicti and the neighbouring Bombi. Thus the 
females, after impregnation in the autumn, having hi¬ 
bernated during the winter in selected receptacles, come 
out with the first gleams of spring conjunctively with the 
large maternal Bombi, in whose nests they have taken 
their long repose in perfect torpidity; and as soon as 
these begin to accumulate the masses of conglomerated 
honey and pollen whereon to deposit their eggs, the 
parasite takes advantage of it, lays her eggs too, and 
thus secures food for her offspring. There being two 
broods of them in the year, many are gradually deve¬ 
loped with the advance of summer, but the great hatch¬ 
ing takes place in the autumn, when the thistles are in 
blossom. Then both males and females come forth in 
abundance, the latter are made fertile, and their partners 
enjoy the brief interval of the still blossoming flowers 
until the usual period is put to their existence by natural 
decay, the first frosts, or the rapacity of insectivorous 
birds. Connected with this last circumstance I have a 
personal experience to record, and which its repetition 
would indicate as being one of Nature’s prompting acts. 
A lofty sandy level, very near the high-road which leads 
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