“ean.. 
5 Grazer 
np 

{EAE 
STREPSIPTERA. 
Tis is the most anomalous of all the Orders of insects, and was 
first constituted, and its characters given by Kirby,* although 
Rossi was in truth the first discoverer. The species with which 
the latter first became acquainted, called after him Xenos Rossi, 
he considered to belong to the Hymenoptera, to which these insects 
do bear affinities, and placed it next to the Ichneumon on account 
of its parasitical habits. In the larva state, all the known species 
of the Order inhabit the bodies of Hymenopterous insects of the 
genera Andrena, Polistes, &c., in this particular resembling the 
Dipterous genus Conops, which inhabits the body of a bee,f and 
apparently in no way inconveniencing their victims; a fact which 
has been accounted for on the supposition that their existence in 
the larva state is but short, and that their attacks being directed 
against the abdomen and not the thorax, the seat of life in insects, 
their presence does not affect the activity of the victim. The larva 
has a soft fusiform body, surmounted by a somewhat globose head. 
While feeding, the head is towards the base of the abdomen; but 
on changing to a pupa, this position is reversed, and the head— 
at first of light brown, but which after a short time becomes 
black—thrust out between the plates of the abdomen. 
The imagos, which are of small size, namely, about the eighth 
of an inch long, are found during August and September. They 
have four wings, but the anterior pair of hard texture, somewhat 
resembling elytra, but hardly answering to them in structure, 
are very poorly developed, and curled round the front pair of legs; 
* On a new Order of Insects, “‘ Linn. Trans.,’’vol. xi. t+ See page 68. 

