Clifton College Scientific Society. 11 



such as the ganglia or tra,chese, as though conscious that its 

 own existence depends on that of its host. 



The time for the exit of the little grubs having arrived, 

 each one, as it issued forth, attached itself to a neighbouring 

 grass-stalk, and there spun a cocoon of the purest light 

 yellow silk, very similar to that of the silkworm, but, of 

 course, on a very reduced scale. In a few days these cocoons 

 gave birth to a four-winged hymenopterous fly, known as 

 Microgaster glomeratus. 



All these instances, and myriads of a like kind, have been 

 known to naturalists for a long period ; but there are others, 

 similar in principle, though varying gi'eatly in the manner in 

 which they are carried out, which have but lately yielded up 

 their secrets to the long-continued observations and patient 

 researches brought to bear upon them. Witness the remark- 

 able results which have been elicited by Mr. Newport in 

 England, and, after him, by M. Fabre in France, in regard 

 to the cantharidse, a family of bettles, including the blister 

 fly {Lytta vesicatoria), the oil beetle {Proscarahceus) and a few 

 other genera. 



Everyone, I think, must be acquainted with the ' com- 

 mon oil beetle ; ' at any rate, there must be few who have 

 not seen it wandering slowly along some sunny bank in early 

 spring ; a fat-bodied insect, an uich or more long, of a black 

 hue, with a purple sheen on its armour- like surface : it has 

 no true wings, and its short elytra, or wing-cases, scarcely 

 reach half the length of its back, at least in the females. 

 Moreover, if curiosity has led you to take it up from the 

 ground, you will not have forgotten the yellow oily drops 

 which the animal discharged from every joint, and which 

 has earned for it its native name. I suppose it is impossible 

 to pitch upon any two animals which are apparently more 

 widely separated by Providence, as regards structure and 

 habit, than this wingless, slow-moving beetle, and the active 

 intelligent bee ; and yet, in one stage of their existence, 

 there are no two animals more closely connected. This 

 strange fact comes about thus. When we see the female 

 oil beetle making its way over the turf or by the side of a 

 path, she is, generally speaking, in search of a spot wherein 

 to deposit her eggs, and she lays about 2,000 in difierent 

 places — a hundred or two at a time — before she has done. 

 Within a month or six weeks from the time the eggs were 

 placed in the ground, the young larvae make their appear- 

 ance, lively, fast-running little creatures, whose first impulse 

 is to leave mother earth, climb up a flower stalk, and ensconce 



