THE ADVENTURES OF A GRUB 



as the frosts of winter have not arrived these open gal- 

 leries are trodden by Spiders and other plunderers, for 

 whom the eggs would make an agreeable meal. 



The better to observe them, I placed a number of the 

 eggs in boxes; and when they hatched out about the 

 end of September I imagined they would at once start 

 off in search of an Anthophora-cell. I was entirely 

 wrong. The young grubs — little black creatures no 

 more than the twenty-fifth of an inch long — did not 

 move away, though provided with vigorous legs. They 

 remained higgledy-piggledy, mixed up with the skins of 

 the eggs whence they came. In vain I placed within 

 their reach lumps of earth containing open Bee-cells: 

 nothing would tempt them to move. If I forcibly re- 

 moved a few from the common heap they at once hur- 

 ried back to it in order to hide themselves among the 

 rest. 



At last, to assure myself that the Sitaris-grubs, in the 

 free state, do not disperse after they are hatched, I went 

 in the winter to Carpentras and inspected the banks 

 inhabited by the Anthophorse. There, as in my boxes, 

 I found the grubs all piled up in heaps, all mixed up 

 with the skins of the eggs. 



I was no nearer answering the question : how does the 

 Sitaris get into the Bees' cells, and into a shell that does 

 not belong to it? 



[163] 



