HYPERMETAMORPHOSIS OF SITARIS 



691 



another moult, there is another entire change in the body ; it is 

 motionless, the head is mask-like without movable appendages, and 

 the feet are represented by six tubercles. This is called the seini- 



FIG. 640. Oil-beetle : a, first larva; b, second larva; c, third larva; d, pupa. 



pupa or pseudo-pupal stage. This form moults, and changes to a 

 third larval form (c), when apparently, as the result of its rich, 

 concentrated food, it is overgrown, thick-bodied, without legs, and 

 resembles a larval bee. 



After thus passing through three larval stages, each remarkably 

 different in structure 

 and in the manner of 

 taking food, it trans- 

 forms into a pupa of 

 the ordinary coleopte- 

 rous shape (d). 



The history of Sita- 

 ris, as worked out by 

 Fabre and more re- 

 cently by Valery- 

 Mayet, is a similar 



Story Of two Strikingly FIG. 641. History of Sitaris: a, triuiifrnlin or 1st larva; 



n-rp i -I , , -i fir, anal spinnerets and claspers of same ; It, 'Jd larva ; e, pseudo- 



Clllterent auaptatlOnal pupa : f, 3d larva ; c, true pupa ; d, imago, . After V. Mayet, 



larval forms succeed- 

 ing the triungulin or primitive larval stage. The first larva (Fig. 

 641, a) is in general like that of Meloe. the second (6) is thick, oval, 

 fleshy, soft-bodied, and with minute legs, evidently of no use, the 

 larva feeding on the honey stored by its host. The pseudo-pupal 

 stage is still more maggot-like than in the corresponding stage of 



