The Bee-eating Philanthus 



ticular starts with albuminoid materials. 

 Many larvae adhere to the -gg-food, many 

 adult insects do likewise. But the struggle 

 to fill the belly, which after all is the strug- 

 gle for life, demands something better than 

 the precarious hazards of the chase. Man, 

 at first a ravenous hunter after game, 

 brought the flock into existence and turned 

 shepherd to avoid a time of dearth. An 

 even greater progress inspired him to scrape 

 the earth and to sow seed, which assures 

 him of a living. The evolution from scarcity 

 to moderation and from moderation to plenty 

 has led to the resources of husbandry. 



The animals forestalled us this path of 

 progress. The ancestors of the Philanthus, 

 in the remote ages of the lacustri?n tertiary 

 formations, lived by prey in both the larval 

 and the adult forms : they hunted for them- 

 selves as well as for the family. They did 

 not confine themselves to emptying the Bee's 

 crop, as their descendants do to this day: 

 they devoured the deceased. From the be- 

 ginning to the end they remained flesh-eaters. 

 Later, fortunate innovators, whose race sup- 

 planted the laggards, discovered an inex- 

 haustible nourishment, obtained without 

 dangerous conflicts or laborious search: the 

 sugar}^ secretions of the flowers. The costly 



279 



