The Primary Larva of the Sitares 



finishing it; sometimes a larva, white hke the 

 first, but more corpulent and of a different 

 shape; at other times honey with an egg 

 floating on the surface. The honey is liquid 

 and sticky, with a brownish colour and a 

 very strong, repulsive smell. The egg is of 

 a beautiful white, cyhndrical in shape, slightly 

 curved into an arc, a fifth or a sixth of an 

 inch in length and not quite a twenty-fifth of 

 an inch in thickness ; it is the egg of the An- 

 thophora. 



In a few cells this egg is floating all alone 

 on the surface of the honey; in others, very 

 numerous these, we see, lying on the egg of 

 the Anthophora, as on a sort of raft, a young 

 Sitaris-grub with the shape and the dimen- 

 sions which I have described above, that is 

 to say, with the shape and the dimensions 

 which the creature possesses on leaving the 

 egg. This is the enemy within the gates. 



When and how did it get in? In none of 

 the cells where I have observed it was I able 

 to distinguish a fissure which could have al- 

 lowed it to enter; they are all sealed in a 

 quite irreproachable manner. The parasite 

 therefore established itself in the honey- 

 warehouse before the warehouse was closed; 

 on the other hand, the open cells, full of 

 honey, but as yet without the egg of the 

 73 



