of the Oil Beetle, Meloe. 313 



Bombi ; and among the latter the bee-formed Volucellce. Now it is easy to 

 conceive that the young Meloes, attracted as they always are by light, ascend 

 the stems, and repose in the calyces of flowers, and attach themselves to the 

 bee when it alights to collect honey or pollen, or to its dipterous parasite. I 

 am strongly inclined to believe that this is in reality the way in which they get 

 access to the bees, as I remember to have once observed, on a hot sunny day, 

 a vast number of minute yellow hexapods, very similar to those of Meloe, 

 lying quietly between the petals of the flower of the dandelion, but which 

 were instantly in motion as soon as the flower was touched. 



I have stated that the young Meloes are quickly aroused to activity by 

 exposure to light. When first developed from the eg^ in the earth, they 

 remain for a time collected together in a heap, and, as already shown, if 

 entirely excluded from light, they will remain undisturbed for several days. 

 But they are aroused to immediate activity the instant they have escaped 

 from the tgg, by the presence of light, and begin to separate and disperse in a 

 direction towards it. Light indeed seems to be their great stimulus to active 

 existence, as there is reason to believe it is the great awakener of the first 

 instinctive act of volition in the newly-born young of all the Articulata, and 

 probably also of the whole animal creation. A marked instance of its direct 

 influence in arousing the voluntary powers of a young lulus, that had just 

 escaped from its foetal coverings, was formerly pointed out by myself in a 

 paper in the 'Transactions of the Royal Society*,' and similar effects are pro- 

 duced by it in the young Meloe. The marked influence of light on these 

 diminutive beings has constantly excited my admiration whenever I have 

 succeeded in obtaining them from the egg ; and on every occasion it has pro- 

 duced similar effects. I have usually confined my young Meloes in a corked 

 phial placed in the window of my apartment. In the morning and through 

 the early part of the day they are in a state of constant activity, distributed 

 over the whole interior of the upper part of the phial ; but in the afternoon, in 

 proportion as the light is diminished, they become more and more inactive, 

 and at length perfectly quiet, collected together in a heap, clustering like 

 bees at that side of the upper part of the phial that is most exposed to light. 

 In order fully to satisfy myself that it is indeed the stimulus of light which 



* Phil. Trans, part ii. 1841, p. 118. 



