122 THE TRACHELIA. 



If, on one of those glorious May-days which seem 

 to unite the freshness of spring with the brilliancy of 

 summer^ we take our contemplative course across the 

 bright green meadows^ or over the short delicate 

 herbage of some sandy heathy we can scarcely fail to 

 meet with a curious example of the first of these 

 tribes_, in the shape of a rather ugly, soft, blue-black 

 beetle, which drags itself along sluggishly in the 

 bright sunshine, and presents a most unfavourable 

 contrast, in the clumsy slowness of its gait, to the 

 active bees which, enlivened by the cloudless sky and 

 the genial air, flit about with their cheerful hum, 

 prying into every flower. Strange as it may appear, 

 however, the progeny of one of these active bees is the 

 destined prey of that of the sluggish wingless beetle. 



The larvae of the latter, when just hatched from 

 the numerous yellow eggs which are deposited by the 

 female in a hole in the ground, are minute, slender, 

 yellow creatures, famished with six legs, on which 

 they run with an agility which contrasts remarkably 

 with the sluggish movements of their parents. By 

 means of these limbs they speedily mount into flowers, 

 especially those of the common buttercups, where they 

 may often be met with. The flowers of these plants 

 are also a favourite resort of the perfect beetles, 

 which, being confined to a vegetable diet, probably 

 find some agreeable food in such situations ; but the 

 object of the young larvse in visiting them is of a very 

 difierent and far less innocent nature, for they lie in 

 wait in the heart of the flower until it is \dsited by 

 some other insect in search of honey, when they 

 immediately attach themselves to its body, and are of 

 course carried away with it on its further peregrina- 

 tions. They are in this way constantly to be found 



