LIBRARY

DIPTERA 773
equipped with chitinous anterior spines and rings of back-pointing body spines
to assist them in escaping the clay and wood cells of their hosts.
The adults greatly resemble bees and wasps, are very swift fliers and darters,
and often make a loud buzzing noise when captured. They frequent damp or
wet places and alight on
soil or rocks in close proximity
to water. Certain
forms visit flowers for nec-
. tar and pollen. The eggs
are dropped in the close
vicinity of or placed about
the nests or cells of bees
and wasps. The very young
larVal make their way into
the cells of bees and wasps
and attach themselves to
the larval which are slowly
but surely sucked dry. The FIG. 282. The large beefly, Bom.uyZ1'us major Linn. (After
Woodworth from Insects oj Wa6tern North America.)
admirable story of the anthrax
fly, Argyrama:ba trifasciata Meigen (Anthrax), predacious on the wall
bee, Chalicodoma muraria Retzius, in France, as told by Fabre, should be
read by every student of entomology and everyone interested in natural history.
The large beefiy, Bombylius major Linn., 7-12 mm. long, clothed in dense
white, yellow, or brown pile intermixed with black and having the anterior
FIG. 283, Wing of the beefly, Anthrax sp.
halves of the wings black, is a widely distributed European, Asiatic. and
North American species which is parasitic on the larvre of bees of the genera
Andrena, Colletes, and Halictus. The larVal of Aphcebantus mus (O.S.), 8-9 mm ••
and Systa:chus oreas O.S. were reported by Riley as feeding on the eggs of
migratory locusts in western North America, while the larVal of the common
Anthrax edititia Say, 12 mm., of southern United States and Mexico are
parasitic on the ground-nesting bees of the genus Anthophora, Anthrax molitor
Loew is parasitic on the chrysalis of a cutwonn in the southwestern states;
Hemipenthes morio Linn., 12 rom., on the larvre of the ichneumon, Banchus