292 Beetles 



tact with the surrounding honey is death to the little creature, which is 

 entirely unfitted for living thereon. After this the triungulin undergoes 

 a moult and appears as a very different creature, Ijcing now a sort of 

 vesicle with the spiracles placed near the upper part; so that it is admirably 

 fitted for floating on the honey. In about forty days, that is, towards the 

 middle of July, the honey is consumed, and the vesicular larva after a few 

 days of repose changes to a p.seudo-pupa within the larval skin. After 

 remaining in this state for about a month some of the specimens go through 

 the sub.sequent changes, and appear as perfect insects in August or Septem- 

 ber. The majority delay this subsecjuent metamorphosis till the following 

 spring, wintering as pseudo-pup;e and continuing the series of changes in 

 June of the following year; at that time the pseudo-pupa returns to a larval 

 form, differing comjMratively little from the second stage. The skin, 

 though detached, is again not shed, so that this ultimate larva is enclosed 

 in two dead skins; in this curious envelope it turns round, and in a couple 

 of days, having thus reversed its position, becomes lethargic and changes 

 to the true pupa, and in about a month .subseriuent to this appears as a 

 perfect insect, at about the same time of the year as it would have done 

 had only one year, instead of two, been occupied by its metamorphosis. 

 M. Fabre employs the term third larva for the stage designated by Riley 

 Scolytoid larva, but this is clearly an inconvenient mode of naming the stage. 

 . . . Meloe is also dependent on Anthophora, and its life-history seems 

 on the whole to be similar to that of Sitaris; the eggs are, however, not 

 necessarily deposited in the neighborhood of the bees' nests, and the 

 triungulins distribute them.selves on all sorts of unsuitable insects, so that 

 it is possible that not more than one in a thousand succeeds in getting access 

 to the Anthophora nest. It would be supposed that it would be a much 

 better course for these bee-fre(iuenting triungulins to act like those of Epicauta, 

 and hunt for the prey they are to live on; but it must be remembered that 

 they cannot live on honey; the one tiny egg is their object, and this appar- 

 ently can only be reached by the method indicated by Fabre. The history 

 of these insects certainly forms a most remarkably instructive cha[)ter in 

 the department of animal instinct, and it is a matter for surpri.se that it 

 should not yet have attracted the attention of comparative psychologists. 

 The series of actions to be performed once, and once only, in a lifetime by 

 an uninstructed, ine.xperienccd atom is such that we should, a priori, have 

 denounced it as an imijossible means of e.xistence, were it not shown that 

 it is constantly successful. It is no wonder that the female Meloe produces 

 five thousand times more eggs than are necessary to continue the species 

 without diminution in the number of its individuals, for the first and most 

 important act in the comple.x series of this life-history is accomplished by 

 an extremely indiscriminating instinct; the newly hatched ^leloe has to 



