Stylops

Coleoptera, the Meloë, and singular Stylops and Xenos; among Neuroptera, the snow insect, Boreus, the Podura (Fig. 109) and Lepisma, and especially the hemipterous lice, will throw a flood of light on these prime subjects in philosophical entomology.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

The history of Stylops, a beetle allied to Meloë, is no less strange than that of Meloë, and is in some respects still more interesting.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

(Fig. 16), Stylops (Fig. 17, male; 18_b_, female; _a_, position in the body of its host), and Antherophagus prey upon them.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

Did the soft, baggy female Stylops live exposed, like its allies in other families, to an out-of-doors life, its skin would inevitably become hard and chitinous.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

The Stylops, being hatched while still in the body of the parent, is, therefore viviparous.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

What is the cause that determines that one individual in a brood of Stylops, for example (Fig. 184, male; Fig. 185, grub-like female in the body of its host), shall be but a grub, living as a parasite in the body of its host, while its fellow shall be winged and as free in its actions as the most highly organized insect?

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

Stylops (Fig. 39_a_, position of the female of Stylops, seen in profile in the abdomen of the bee; Fig. 39_b_, the female seen from above.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

Though the male Stylops deserts his host, his wingless partner is imprisoned during her whole life within her host, and dies immediately after giving birth to her myriad (for

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

[Stylops and Xenos] and Coccidæ in their first stage of development, and indeed in many of these at their first moult. "

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872