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Updated: August 17, 2024
The eggs are little spindles, white and gleaming like ivory, about two-thirds of a millimeter in length. They have not the long, curved peduncle of the Leucospis' eggs; they are not suspended from the ceiling of the cocoon like these, but are laid without order around the fostering larva.
Lastly, in a single cell and with a single mother, there is always more than one laying; and the number of eggs varies considerably in each. The Leucospis, because of her great size, which rivals that of her victim, the Bee, finds in each cell provisions enough for one and one alone.
True, the Leucospis possesses muscular force and a hard boring tool. The Anthrax is extremely weak and has nothing but invincible patience. It does at great length of time what the other, furnished with superior implements, accomplishes in three hours.
This scabbard holds the latter half of the inoculating filament, which extends below the animal to the base of the abdomen. In short, its utensil is that of the Leucospis, with this difference, that its lower half sticks out like a rapier. This mite that bears a sword upon her rump is yet another persecutor of the mason bees and not one of the least formidable.
It is one of the Chalcididæ, about one-fifth or one-sixth of an inch in length; entirely black, with knotty antennæ, which are slightly thicker towards their extremities. The unsheathed ovipositor is implanted in the under portion of the abdomen, about the middle, and at right angles to the axis of the body, as in the case of the Leucospis, the pest of the apiary.
We see here repeated what the Anthrax and the Leucospis have already shown us: the gradual exhaustion of a victim which the parasite consumes without killing it. It is a curious spectacle even after that of the Anthrax.
Nevertheless, the lens is far from always finding an inlet of this kind on the nests occupied by Anthrax flies. And so I am ready to allow that the animalcule wandering in search of its cell has the whole area of the dome at its disposal when selecting an entrance. Where the line auger of the Leucospis can enter, is there not room enough for the even slimmer Anthrax grub?
It is a puny little insect, almost as tiny as the midges whom we see eddying in a ray of sunshine at the end of autumn. Its dress is golden bronze; its eyes are coral red. It carries a naked sword, that is to say, the sheath of its drill stands out slantwise at the tip of its belly, instead of lying in a hollow groove along the back, as it does with the Leucospis.
She exploits their nests at the same time as the Leucospis. I see her, like the Leucospis, slowly explore the ground with her antennae; I see her, like the Leucospis, bravely drive her dagger into the stone wall. More taken up with her work, less conscious perhaps of danger, she pays no heed to the man who is observing her so closely. Where the Leucospis flies, she does not budge.
When it is by itself on the body of the mason bee's larva, the murderous grub belongs either to Anthrax trifasciata, MEIGEN, or to Leucospis gigas, FAB. But, if numerous little worms, often a score and more, swarm around the victim, then it is a Chalcidid's family which we have before us. Each of these ravagers shall have its biography. Let us begin with the Anthrax.
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