Two new Strepsipterous Insects. 43 VIII. Descriptions of two new Strepsipterous Insects from Albania, parasitical on Bees of the Genus Hylseus; with some Account of their Habits and Metamorphoses. By S. S. Saunders, Esq. [Read 1st April, 1850.] Much insight has gradually been obtained, especially during late years, into the singular economy of the Slrepsiptera, which has formed the subject of several interesting notices in the Transactions of this Society, followed by many important facts recorded by Dr. Siebold of Erlangen,* by an elaborate paper, accompanied by microscopic details of extreme nicety, contributed by Mr. George Newport to the Transactions of the Linnaean Society (vol. xx. part 2, 1847), by critical disquisitions on their affinities by Mr. Newman, published in the Zoologist, &c. ; and in adding to the list of this pigmy tribe, two new species, reared from the bodies of bees, of the genus Hylceus of Latreille (Prosopis of Jurine), I avail myself of the opportunity which presents itself, to offer some remarks on their eventful history and extraordinary career. The first of these species I obtained from a large oak-gall, which, being tenanted by some Hymenopterous larvae, I had placed in a box, where it remained forgotten until autumn, when, I observed, among several specimens of Hylceus, which had been produced and died in the interim, some exhibiting abdominal pro-tuberances, caused by the presence of Strepsipterous insects, still shrouded in their pupa envelopes, having perished in situ, although ready to burst forth in the imago state. The following year my endeavours to obtain more of the Hylcei from oak-galls proved ineffectual ; but knowing that these bees also nidificated in briars, I collected a quantity of briar-snags, and on the 2Sth of May, having examined some of the cells, I selected from among their occupants five already-formed pupae, the remainder being still in the larva state ; of these pupae three completed their transformations after the lapse of two days, when 1 had the satisfaction of perceiving that each of the bees then produced presented the usual parasitical phenomena, not pre-viously apparent ; and the next morning, on placing them in a phial accessible to the sun, two of the winged parasites — smaller than those previously obtained from the Hylceus of the gall — speedily * la Weigmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschichte, 1843.
VIII. Descriptions of two new Strepsipterous Insects from Albania, parasitical on Bees of the Genus Hylæus; with some Account of their Habits and Metamorphoses
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