The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



must the number be, when we allow for the 

 two or three batches that follow the first! 

 The Sitares, entrusting their eggs to the very 

 corridors through which the Anthophora is 

 bound to pass, spare their larvae a host of 

 dangers which the larvae of the Meloe have 

 to run, for these, born far from the dwell- 

 ings of the Bees, are obliged to make their 

 own way to their hymenopterous foster- 

 parents. The Oil-beetles, therefore, lack- 

 ing the instinct of the Sitares, are endowed 

 with incomparably greater fecundity. The 

 richness of their ovaries atones for the in- 

 sufficiency of instinct by proportioning the 

 number of germs in accordance with the risks 

 of destruction. What transcendent harmony 

 is this, which thus holds the scales between 

 the fecundity of the ovaries and the perfect- 

 ion of instinct ! 



The hatching of the eggs takes place at the 

 end of May or in June, about a month after 

 they are laid. The eggs of the Sitares also 

 are hatched after the same lapse of time. 

 But the Meloe-larvae, more greatly fa- 

 voured, are able to set off immediately in 

 search of the Bees that are to feed them; 

 while those of the Sitares, hatched in Sep- 

 tember, have to wait motionless and in com- 

 plete abstinence for the emergence of the An- 



88 



