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Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 111
Álvaro Rocha
Mohammed Serrhini Editors
Information
Systems and
Technologies to
Support Learning
Proceedings of EMENA-ISTL 2018
123
Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies
Volume 111
Series editors
Robert James Howlett, Bournemouth University and KES International,
Shoreham-by-sea, UK
e-mail: rjhowlett@kesinternational.org
Editors
Information Systems
and Technologies
to Support Learning
Proceedings of EMENA-ISTL 2018
123
Editors
Álvaro Rocha Mohammed Serrhini
Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Departement informatique, Faculté des
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Sciences
Universidade de Coimbra Université Mohammed Ier
Coimbra, Portugal Oujda, Morocco
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
This book contains a selection of papers accepted for presentation and discussion at
the second edition of international conference Europe, Middle East, and North
Africa Conference on Information Systems and Technologies to Support Learning
2018 (EMENA-ISTL’18). This Conference had the support of the University
Mohamed First Oujda, Morocco, AISTI (Iberian Association for Information
Systems and Technologies/Associação Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de
Informação), and Private University of Fez, Morocco. It took place in Fez,
Morocco, from October 25 to 27, 2018.
EMENA-ISTLL’18 conference has two aims: First, it provides the ideal
opportunity to bring together professors, researchers, and high education students of
different disciplines, discuss new issues, and discover the most recent develop-
ments, researches, and trends on information and communication technologies,
emerging technologies, and security to support in learning. Second goal is focusing
on to boost future collaboration and cooperation between researchers and aca-
demicians from Europe Middle East and North Africa universities (EMENA).
The Program Committee of EMENA-ISTL’18 was composed of a multidisci-
plinary group of experts and those who are intimately concerned with information
and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and security. They have
had the responsibility for evaluating, in a “blind review” process, the papers
received for each of the main themes proposed for the Conference: (A) Information
systems Technologies to support Education; (B) Education in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics; (C) Emerging Technologies in Education Learning
innovation in digital age; (D) Software Systems, Architectures, Applications and
Tools; (E) Multimedia Systems and Applications; (F) Computer Communications
and Networks; (G) IOT, Smart Cities and People, Wireless, Sensor and Ad-Hoc
Networks; (H) Organizational Models and Information Systems and Technologies;
(I) Human-Computer Interaction; (J) Computers & Security, Ethics and
Data-forensic; (K) Health Informatics, and Medical Informatics Security;
(L) Information and Knowledge Management; (M) Big Data Analytics and
Applications, Intelligent Data Systems, and Machine Learning; (N) Artificial
Intelligence, High Performance Computing; (O) Mobile, Embedded and Ubiquitous
v
vi Preface
Systems; (P) Language and Image Processing, Computer Graphics and vision;
(Q) Interdisciplinary Field of Fuzzy Logic and Data Mining.
EMENA-ISTL’18 received 150 contributions from 44 countries around the
world. The papers accepted for presentation and discussion at the conference are
published by Springer (this book) and by EMENA-ISTL’18 (another e-book) and
will be submitted for indexing by ISI, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS, DBLP, and/or
Scholar Google, among others. Extended versions of selected best papers will be
published in relevant journals, including SCI/SSCI and Scopus indexed journals.
We acknowledge all those who contributed to the staging of EMENA-ISTL’18
(authors, committees, and sponsors); their involvement and support are very much
appreciated.
Conference
General Chair
Conference Co-chairs
Local Chairs
Advisory Committee
vii
viii Organization
Program Committee
xi
xii Contents
Abstract. In this article, the state of the art of data mining applied to obtaining
frequent navigation behaviors in an educational environment is described. The
procedure used by the data mining algorithms chosen to classify Internet users
based on their browsing preferences which is explained. An explanation of the
records that are used for the training of the algorithms is made, and finally a
comparison of the efficiency of the categorization is made.
1 Introduction
Internet users access web pages sequentially, with the possibility of re-entering those
that are of interest.
When observing a set of Internet users, university students, grouped by affinity,
who access freely to web pages, it is possible to verify that at a certain moment they
will access the same pages, depending on the area of interest [11].
The first step of this research is to discover the surfing patterns of Internet users,
grouped by affinity.
The next step is to compare the browsing preferences of new Internet users with the
browsing patterns obtained in the previous step. If the result of the comparison is true,
then the new surfer is grouped in the corresponding category. Otherwise, a new nav-
igation behavior is detected, whose treatment is explained through the GSP_M algo-
rithm, which is detailed below.
In the following paragraphs, the definitions for state, itemset and sequences are
presented. Later, the algorithms that were applied will be explained, in order to obtain
common navigation patterns.
Finally, complete content and organizational editing before formatting. Please take
note of the following items when proofreading spelling and grammar [12, 13]:
Executing GSP with a minimum support of 0.5, 5 sequences were registered in the
BDP database: <a>, <b>, <c>, <a, c> and <(ab)>. While in the SNEU database were
recorded as discarded sequences: <a, b, c>, <bc>, <(ad)>, <d, c>, <(ad), c>, <(ef)>,
<(ef), (ab)>.
The sequences contained in SNEU will be taken into account, to verify if a
sequence is being included in SNEU, exceeds the minimum support threshold and thus
becomes a new behavior pattern. This process is done by applying Algorithm 2.
Categorization of Types of Internautes Based on Their Navigation Preferences 5
Algorithm 2, uses the memory capacity of GSP_M, and, the inclusion character-
istics of one sequence in another to obtain the new patterns. As examples of the
application of this algorithm, two experiments were proposed. In both experiments the
sequences S1 and S2 described in the second row of Tables 3 and 4 were compared.
The results of the comparison are included in the same tables.
As a main result of the experiment described in Table 3, the algorithm divided the
itemset b2 of the sequence 2, into two sub-sequences in such a way that it could be
identified that the itemset a1 of the sequence 1, corresponded with the itemset b21 in
the sequence 2.
6 H. F. Gomez A et al.
Table 4. Application of the sequence inclusion algorithm: The sequence 1 is not included in the
sequence 2.
Sequence 1 Sequence 2
S1 = <(3 5)> S2 = <(3)(5)>
a1 = (3 5) en donde a11 = (3) b11 = {(3)} b12 = {}
a12 = (5) b21 = {(5)} b22 = {}
a11 está en b11
a12 no está en b12
3 Experimentation
A test group of 150 volunteer Internet users was formed. The Internet users were
grouped by affinity and they were allowed to surf for 10 h in educational web envi-
ronments, at a rate of 2 h a day for five days.
The interest affinity groups selected were Business Administration, Mathematics
and Information Technology [15]. Each group had access to educational web envi-
ronments, in which 1180 navigation resources were offered. Examples of these
resources are: search pages, specialized magazines, pages of solved exercises, etc. Each
resource was given a diffuse value, related to the number of times the Internet user
accessed it. In Fig. 1, you can see the resources and fuzzy values assigned.
The training data set was generated by 150 Internet users, categorized into three
groups of each 50 members (Table 5).
With the data generated by each of the groups, the GSP algorithm was trained to
obtain the behavior patterns of each of the categories of Internet users. Once the
algorithm was trained, as a test, the data generated by the 150 Internet users was
analyzed again, obtaining the results shown in Table 6. The procedure was repeated for
GSP_M.
Categorization of Types of Internautes Based on Their Navigation Preferences 7
Table 6. Results of the analysis of the behavior of Internet users with the trained algorithms.
Companies Computing Maths
GSP 36 41 37
GSP_M 43 48 49
8 H. F. Gomez A et al.
The final experimentation was carried out, including the group of new volunteers,
in each of the affinity groups, as shown in Table 7.
The data generated by these new Internet users were processed by GSP and
GSP_M, obtaining the results shown in Table 8:
Table 8. Results of the application of the algorithms on the behavior of new Internet users.
Companies Computing Maths
GSP 11 27 13
GSP_M 15 44 15
Table 9. Effectiveness rates of the GSP_ M and GSP algorithms on Internet user behavior.
I. Algorithm Empr Math Com
GSP 68% 58% 76%
GSP_M 93% 95% 88%
The analysis of the results obtained allows us to conclude that the effectiveness rate
of the GSP_M algorithm exceeds the effectiveness rate of the GSP algorithm. The
explanation why GSP_M is more efficient is related to the fact that it allows the
handling of repeated itemsets in its sequences and to the determination of the weight of
the states. These permissions to access are very important in the domain in which
Internet users access educational environments, as they generally repeat and combine
their states.
Categorization of Types of Internautes Based on Their Navigation Preferences 9
4 Future Research
The next step is to take into account this categorization in order to be used by a
recommender system to individualize the access pages of each user and to provide
individuality in virtual learning environments collaborative and recommender systems
that use data mining for the continuous improvement of e-learning courses are pre-
sented, in order that teachers of similar profile, share their research as a result of
applying mining locally on their own sources.
References
1. Ventura, S.: Minería de Datos en sistemas educativos, Presentación para el Departamento de
Computing y Análisis Numérico de la Universidad de Córdoba
2. Srivastava, J., Mobasher, B., Cooley, R.: Automatic personalization based on web usage
mining. Commun. Assoc. Comput. Machin. 43, 142–151 (2000)
3. Li, J., Zaiane, O.: Combining usage, content and structure data to improve web site
recommendation. In: International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web Tech-
nologies, Spain (2004)
4. Perkowitz, M., Etzioni, O.: Adaptive web sites: automatically synthesizing web pages. In:
National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, WI (1998)
5. Barnett, V., Lewis, T.: Outliers in Statistical Data. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (1994)
6. Zaïane, O.: Web usage mining for a better web-based learning environment. In: Conference
on Advanced Technology for Education, pp. 60–64 (2001)
7. Soto, S.V., Martínez, C.H., Morales, C.R.: Estado actual de la aplicación de la minería de
datos a los sistemas de enseñanza basada en web. In: Roberto Ruiz, T. (ed.) III Taller de
Minería de Datos y Aprendizaje (TAMIDA 2005) (2005)
8. Mobasher, B., Srivastava, J., Cooley, R.: Data preparation for mining world wide web
browsing patterns. Knowl. Inf. Syst. 1, 5–32 (1999)
9. Mobasher, B., Srivastava, J., Cooley, R.: Web mining: information and pattern discovery on
the world wide web. In: 9th IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial
Intelligence, pp. 558–567 (1997)
10. Xin, M., Han, J., Zaiane, O.R.: Discovering web access patterns and trends by applying
OLAP and data mining technology on web logs. In: Proceedings of Advances in Digital
Libraries ADL 1998, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, pp. 19–29, April 1998
11. Rodríguez, J.: Influencia de Internet sobre la profesión enfermera. Hospital Clínico
Universitario de Santiago de Compostela, Revista de enfermería cardiovascular, 25
Septiembre del 2003
12. Agrawal, R., Srikant R.: Mining sequential patterns: generalizations and performance
improvements. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Extending Database
Technology, EDBT, vol. 1057, pp. 3–17, February-May—February-September 1996
13. Pujari, A.: Data Mining Techniques, p. 284. Universities Press (India) (2005)
14. Gómez, H.: Interpretación de alto nivel de Sequence de video conducida por ontologías,
Tesis UNED-UTPL
15. E. d. a. a. i. simbólico: “scalab.uc3m.es,” 9 Agosto 2010. http://scalab.uc3m.es/*dborrajo/
cursos/ejercicios-aa.html
Metaheuristic Approaches for Solving
University Timetabling Problems: A Review
and Case Studies from Middle Eastern
Universities
Manar Hosny(&)
1 Introduction
Producing and managing different schedules are among the frequent tasks that almost
every educational institution needs to handle periodically, in order to plan their courses,
exams, staff schedules, students’ projects, etc. These problems are referred to in the
literature as timetabling or scheduling problems, which generally require allocating
certain events to specific resources, such as timeslots, rooms, and lecturers. It is indeed
one of the important and difficult administrative issues that arise in academic institu-
tions. Most of these problems are subject to a large number of constraints that make
them even harder to solve. In general, researchers in the field have classified the
constraints into two types: hard constraints and soft constraints [1, 2]. Hard constraints
are those that are mandatory and must be strictly enforced in the solution, in the sense
that their violation produces infeasible schedules. Soft constraints, on the other hand,
are desirable but their violation does not make the schedule infeasible.
The task of generating a timetable manually is a time consuming and tedious
process, which in turn usually fails to satisfy all essential constraints. Therefore,
designing university timetables automatically has great benefits in reducing the
workload of the scheduler and satisfying the preferences of the staff members and the
constraints of the administration.
Over the past decades, university scheduling problems have attracted the attention
of the scientific community and have been subject to extensive research [1], particularly
in computer science and operations research. Many timetabling problems are classified
under the category of combinatorial optimization problems. Solving combinatorial
optimization problems with large instances using exact methods is usually unsatis-
factory in terms of the computational time or effort involved; hence why, using (meta)
heuristics, i.e., approximate solution methods, is a sound alternative [3]. Among the
most famous metaheuristic techniques are: Hill Climbing (HC), Simulated Annealing
(SA), Genetic Algorithms (GAs), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Particle Swarm
Optimization (PSO), Tabu Search (TS) and Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS).
Due to the huge amount of research on timetabling problems, we limit this survey
to timetabling problems tackled in educational institutions within the Middle East,
focusing mainly on those applying heuristic or metaheuristic approaches. We aim to
shed light on these important scheduling problems, by providing an overview of dif-
ferent university timetabling problem types and giving examples of successful research
dealing with these problems. We aspire to motivate researchers to develop new solution
methods that can address the underlying challenges and help in the automation of this
tedious process for real life applications. This surveys covers selected articles published
during the period 2011–2018 in the Middle East region. We conclude our survey with a
discussion on some open challenges and promising areas for further research directions
in university timetabling problems.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Sect. 2 defines the different university
scheduling problems and models. The problems are classified into the well-known
problems: Examination Timetabling (ET), Course Timetabling (CT), and Staff Time-
tabling (ST). In addition, we propose a new problem which is Project Timetabling (PT).
Section 3 is a brief survey of selected case studies that tackled these problems in
Middle Eastern universities. Section 4 is a discussion and analysis of the most
important findings of the survey. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes with some important
challenges and open research directions that may be followed in further studies by the
interested researchers.
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EDITED BY
AND
VOLUME VI
INSECTS
PART II. Hymenoptera continued (Tubulifera and Aculeata), Coleoptera, Strepsiptera,
Lepidoptera, Diptera, Aphaniptera, Thysanoptera, Hemiptera, Anoplura.
By David Sharp, M.A. (Cantab.), M.B. (Edinb.), F.R.S.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899
"Men are poor things; I don't know why the world thinks so
much of them."—Mrs. Bee, by L. & M. Wintle.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Scheme of the Classification adopted in this Book vii
CHAPTER I
Hymenoptera Petiolata continued—Series 2. Tubulifera or
Chrysididae.—Series 3. Aculeata—General—Classification—
Division I. Anthophila or Bees 1
CHAPTER II
Hymenoptera Aculeata continued—Division II. Diploptera or
Wasps—Eumenidae, Solitary True Wasps—Vespidae, Social
Wasps—Masaridae 71
CHAPTER III
Hymenoptera Aculeata continued—Division III. Fossores or
Fossorial Solitary Wasps—Family Scoliidae or Subterranean
Fossores—Family Pompilidae or Runners—Family Sphegidae
or Perfect-Stingers 90
CHAPTER IV
Hymenoptera Aculeata continued—Division IV. Formicidae or Ants 131
CHAPTER V
Coleoptera or Beetles—Strepsiptera 184
CHAPTER VI
Lepidoptera, or Butterflies and Moths 304
CHAPTER VII
Diptera, or Flies—Aphaniptera, or Fleas—Thysanoptera, or
Thrips 438
CHAPTER VIII
Hemiptera, or Bugs—Anoplura 532
Notes and Corrigenda to Volume VI. and to Insecta of Volume V. 602
Index 603
SCHEME OF THE CLASSIFICATION ADOPTED IN THIS BOOK
Sub-order,
Sub-Family or
Order. Division, Family. Group.
Tribe.
or Series.
HYMENOPTERA Petiolata. (continued from Vol. V).
(continued from Tubulifera
Chrysididae (p. 1).
Vol. V) (p. 1)
Aculeata Archiapides (p. 21).
(p. 4) Obtusilingues (p. 22).
Anthophila
Andrenides (p. 23).
(p. 10)
Denudatae (p. 29).
Apidae
Scopulipedes (p. 32).
(p. 10)
Dasygastres (p. 35).
Sociales (p. 53).
Diploptera
Eumenidae (p. 72).
Vespidae (p. 78).
Masaridae (p. 88).
Mutillides (p. 94).
Fossores
Thynnides (p. 96).
(p. 90)
Scoliides (p. 97).
Scoliidae
Sapygides (p. 99).
(p. 94)
Rhopalosomides (p. 100).
Pompilidae (p. 101).
Sphegides (p. 107).
Ampulicides (p. 114).
Larrides (p. 116).
Trypoxylonides (p. 118).
Sphegidae Astatides (p. 119).
(p. 107) Bembecides (p. 119).
Nyssonides (p. 123).
Philanthides (p. 124).
Mimesides (p. 127).
Crabronides (p. 128).
Heterogyna Camponotides (p. 144).
(p. 131) Dolichoderides (p. 157).
Formicidae Myrmicini
(p. 131) (p. 159).
Attini (p. 165).
Myrmicides
Pseudomyrmini
(p. 158)
(p. 168).
Cryptocerini
(p. 169).
Ponerides (p. 170).
Ecitonini
Dorylides
(p. 175).
(p. 174)
Dorylini (p. 177).
Amblyoponides (p. 180).
Sub-order,
Sub-Family or
Order. Division, Family.
Tribe.
or Series.
COLEOPTERA Passalidae (p. 192).
(p. 184) Lucanidae (p. 193).
Coprides (p. 195).
Lamellicornia Melolonthides
(p. 190) Scarabaeidae (p. 198).
(p. 194) Rutelides (p. 198).
Dynastides (p. 199).
Cetoniides (p. 199).
Cicindelidae (p. 201).
Carabides (p. 206).
Harpalides (p. 206).
Pseudomorphides
Carabidae (p. 204)
Adephaga or (p. 206).
Caraboidea Mormolycides
(p. 200) (p. 206).
Amphizoidae (p. 207).
Pelobiidae (p. 207).
Haliplidae (p. 209).
Dytiscidae (p. 210).
Polymorpha Paussidae (p. 213).
(p. 213) Gyrinidae (p. 215).
Hydrophilidae (p. 216).
Platypsyllidae (p. 219).
Leptinidae (p. 220).
Silphidae (p. 221).
Scydmaenidae (p. 223).
Gnostidae (p. 223).
Pselaphidae (p. 223).
Staphylinidae (p. 224).
Sphaeriidae (p. 227).
Trichopterygidae (p. 227).
Hydroscaphidae (p. 228).
Corylophidae (p. 228).
Scaphidiidae (p. 229).
Synteliidae (p. 229).
Histeridae (p. 230).
Phalacridae (p. 231).
Nitidulidae (p. 231).
Trogositidae (p. 232).
Colydiidae (p. 233).
Rhysodidae (p. 234).
Cucujidae (p. 234).
Cryptophagidae (p. 235).
Helotidae (p. 235).
Thorictidae (p. 236).
Erotylidae (p. 236).
Mycetophagidae (p. 237).
Coccinellidae (p. 237).
Endomychidae (p. 239).
Mycetaeidae (p. 239).
Latridiidae (p. 240).
Adimeridae (p. 240).
Dermestidae (p. 241).
Byrrhidae (p. 242).
Cyathoceridae (p. 243).
Georyssidae (p. 243).
Heteroceridae (p. 243).
Parnidae (p. 243).
Derodontidae (p. 244).
Cioidae (p. 245).
Sphindidae (p. 245).
Bostrichidae (p. 246).
Ptinides (p. 246).
Ptinidae (p. 246)
Anobiides (p. 246).
Lycides (p. 248).
Drilides (p. 248).
Malacodermidae Lampyrides
(p. 248) (p. 248).
Telephorides
(p. 248).
Melyridae (p. 252).
Cleridae (p. 253).
Lymexylonidae (p. 254).
Dascillidae (p. 255).
Rhipiceridae (p. 256).
Elateridae Throscides (p. 260).
(p. 256) Eucnemides
(p. 260).
Elaterides (p. 260).
Cebrionides
(p. 260).
Perothopides
(p. 260).
Cerophytides
(p. 260).
Buprestidae (p. 261).
Tenebrionidae (p. 263).
Cistelidae (p. 264).
Lagriidae (p. 264).
Othniidae (p. 265).
Aegialitidae (p. 265).
Monommidae (p. 265).
Nilionidae (p. 265).
Heteromera
Melandryidae (p. 265).
(p. 262)
Pythidae (p. 265).
Pyrochroidae (p. 266).
Anthicidae (p. 266).
Oedemeridae (p. 266).
Mordellidae (p. 267).
Cantharidae (p. 269).
Trictenotomidae (p. 275).
Bruchidae (p. 276)
Eupoda (p. 280).
Camptosomes
Chrysomelidae (p. 281).
(p. 278) Cyclica (p. 282).
Phytophaga
Cryptostomes
(p. 276)
(p. 282).
Prionides (p. 287).
Cerambycidae Cerambycides
(p. 285) (p. 287).
Lamiides (p. 287).
Anthribidae (p. 290).
Rhynchophora Curculionidae (p. 290).
(p. 288) Scolytidae (p. 294).
Brenthidae (p. 295).
Aglycyderidae (p. 297).
Protorhinidae (p. 298).
Strepsiptera
Stylopidae (p. 298).
(p. 298)
Sub-order,
Sub-Family or
Order. Division, Family.
Tribe.
or Series.
DIPTERA Cecidomyiidae (p. 458).
(p. 438) Mycetophilidae (p. 462).
Blepharoceridae (p. 464).
Culicidae (p. 466).
Chironomidae (p. 468).
Orphnephilidae (p. 470).
Orthorrhapha Psychodidae (p. 470).
Nemocera Dixidae (p. 471).
(p. 455) Ptychopterinae
Tipulidae (p. 472).
(p. 471) Limnobiinae (p. 473).
Tipulinae (p. 475).
Bibionidae (p. 475).
Simuliidae (p. 477).
Rhyphidae (p. 478).
Orthorrhapha Stratiomyidae (p. 478).
Brachycera Leptidae (p. 479).
(pp. 455, 478) Tabanidae (p. 481).
Acanthomeridae (p. 483).
Therevidae (p. 484).
Scenopinidae (p. 484).
Nemestrinidae (p. 484).
Bombyliidae (p. 485).
Acroceridae (p. 489).
Lonchopteridae (p. 490).
Mydaidae (p. 491).
Asilidae (p. 491).
Apioceridae (p. 492).
Empidae (p. 492).
Dolichopidae (p. 493).
Phoridae (p. 494).
Cyclorrhapha Platypezidae (p. 496).
Asciza Pipunculidae (p. 496).
(pp. 455, 494) Conopidae (p. 497).
Syrphidae (p. 498).
Muscidae Acalyptratae (p. 503).
Anthomyiidae (p. 506).
Cyclorrhapha Tachinidae (p. 507).
Schizophora Dexiidae (p. 510).
(pp. 456, 503) Sarcophagidae (p. 510).
Muscidae (p. 511).
Oestridae (p. 514).
Hippoboscidae (p. 518).
Pupipara Braulidae (p. 520).
(pp. 456, 517) Streblidae (p. 521).
Nycteribiidae (p. 521).
Although none of the Ruby-flies attain a large size, they are usually
very conspicuous on account of their gaudy or brilliant colours. They
are amongst the most restless and rapid of Insects; they love the hot
sunshine, and are difficult of capture. Though not anywhere
numerous in species, they are found in most parts of the world. In
Britain we have about twenty species. They usually frequent old
wood or masonry, in which the nests of Aculeate Hymenoptera exist,
or fly rapidly to and fro about the banks of earth where bees nest. Dr.
Chapman has observed the habits of some of our British species.[2]
He noticed Chrysis ignita flying about the cell of Odynerus parietum,
a solitary wasp that provisions its nest with caterpillars; in this cell
the Chrysis deposited an egg, and in less than an hour the wasp had
sealed the cell. Two days afterwards this was opened and was found
to contain a larva of Chrysis a quarter of an inch long, as well as the
Lepidopterous larvae stored up by the wasp, but there was no trace
of egg or young of the wasp. Six days after the egg was laid the
Chrysis had eaten all the food and was full-grown, having moulted
three or four times. Afterwards it formed a cocoon in which to
complete its metamorphosis. It is, however, more usual for the
species of Chrysis to live on the larva of the wasp and not on the
food; indeed, it has recently been positively stated that Chrysis never
eats the food in the wasp's cell, but there is no ground whatever for
rejecting the evidence of so careful an observer as Dr. Chapman.
According to M. du Buysson the larva of Chrysis will not eat the
lepidopterous larvae, but will die in their midst if the Odynerus larva
does not develop; but this observation probably relates only to such
species as habitually live on Odynerus itself. The mother-wasp of
Chrysis bidentata searches for a cell of Odynerus spinipes that has
not been properly closed, and that contains a full-grown larva of that
wasp enclosed in its cocoon. Having succeeded in its search the
Chrysis deposits several eggs—from six to ten; for some reason that
is not apparent all but one of these eggs fail to produce young; in two
or three days this one hatches, the others shrivelling up. The young
Chrysis larva seizes with its mouth a fold of the skin of the helpless
larva of the Odynerus, and sucks it without inflicting any visible
wound. In about eleven days the Chrysis has changed its skin four
times, has consumed all the larva and is full-fed; it spins its own
cocoon inside that of its victim, and remains therein till the following
spring, when it changes to a pupa, and in less than three weeks
thereafter emerges a perfect Chrysis of the most brilliant colour, and
if it be a female indefatigable in activity. It is remarkable that the larva
of Chrysis is so much like that of Odynerus that the two can only be
distinguished externally by the colour, the Odynerus being yellow
and the Chrysis white; but this is only one of the many cases in
which host and parasite are extremely similar to the eye. Chrysis
shanghaiensis has been reared from the cocoons of a Lepidopterous
Insect—Monema flavescens, family Limacodidae—and it has been
presumed that it eats the larva therein contained. All other Chrysids,
so far as known, live at the expense of Hymenoptera (usually, as we
have seen, actually consuming their bodies), and it is not impossible
that C. shanghaiensis really lives on a Hymenopterous parasite in
the cocoon of the Lepidopteron.