THE ADVENTURES OF A GRUB 



spring. Surely these grubs, which are paralysed and 

 incapable of self-defence, must be a temptation — fat 

 little morsels as they are — to some kind of parasite, some 

 kind of insect stranger in search of prey. The matter 

 is worth inquiring into. 



Two facts are at once noticeable. Some dismal- 

 looking Flies, half black and half white, are flying in- 

 dolently from gallery to gallery, evidently with the 

 object of laying their eggs there. Many of them are 

 hanging dry and lifeless in the Spiders' webs. At other 

 places the entire surface of a bank is hung with the dried 

 corpses of a certain Beetle, called the Sitaris. Among 

 the corpses, however, are a few live Beetles, both male 

 and female. The female Beetle invariably disappears 

 into the Bees' dwelling. Without a doubt she, too, lays 

 her eggs there. 



If we give a few blows of the pick to the surface of 

 the bank we shall find out something more about these 

 things. During the early days of August this is what 

 we shall see: the cells forming the top layer are unlike 

 those at a greater depth. The difference is owing to the 

 fact that the same establishment is used by two kinds of 

 Bee, the Anthophora and the Osmia. 



The Anthophorae are the actual pioneers. The work 

 of boring the galleries is wholly theirs, and their cells 

 are right at the end. If they, for any reason, leave the 



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