of the Oil Beetle, Meloé. — 313 
Bombi; and among the latter the bee-formed Volucella. Now it is easy to 
conceive that the young Meloés, 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 Meloé, 
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 Meloés are quickly aroused to activity by 
exposure to light. When first developed from the egg 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 egg, 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 Tulus, 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 Meloë. 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 Meloés 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 
aa * Phil. Trans. part ii. 1841, p. 118. 
