A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



part of the body is moved a little up and down produces the squeak. 

 This kind of file and scraper arrangement is not uncommon amongst 

 beetles, but there is considerable diversity in the situation of the apparatus 

 and the organs involved. The common oil-beetle {Meloe proscarabceus), 

 a large heavy blue black insect with oval pointed wing-cases which over- 

 lap at the base, is so-called from the power which it possesses of exuding 

 a clear yellow fluid from its joints when handled. On this account, 

 although it is common enough in grassy places in the spring and early 

 summer, it is by no means a prepossessing object. Its claim on our 

 attention is due to its wonderful metamorphoses, the latter having been 

 for the most part well ascertained. The female deposits an immense 

 number of minute yellow eggs, in from two to four batches. These 

 eggs are glued together and deposited in small holes in the ground, dug 

 by the parent beetle. After an interval of from three to six weeks the 

 young larvas hatch out ; they are extremely small elongate orange yellow 

 insects with the body nearly parallel in front and much narrowed behind, 

 the tail bearing four very long hairs, two on each side ; the legs are very 

 long and terminate in a single claw, on each side of which there is 

 a slender hook-Hke process, so that the end of the legs appears to be split 

 into three parts (hence the name triungulin which has been applied to this 

 first form of the larva) ; this contrivance enables the Httle larvae to cling 

 very tightly to any object. They appear to remain dormant for some 

 time, but under the influence of sufficient warmth exhibit great activity 

 in running over low plants, chiefly those of the Natural Order Ranuncu- 

 laceee. From these they attach themselves to the hairy clothing of bees 

 and other insects which visit the flowers. Such of the larv£ as happen 

 to attach themselves to bees of the genus Anthophora are carried by the 

 latter to their nests, where the larva, in the course of a period during 

 which it devours the eggs of the bee and the food stored up by the latter 

 for its own young, changes its form at least three times before it becomes 

 an ordinary beetle pupa from which the perfect oil-beetle emerges. It 

 will be seen that only a very small proportion of the ofi^spring of the 

 oil-beetle can possibly reach maturity ; and on this point Dr. Sharp 

 says {Cambridge Natural History, vol. vi. p. 274) : ' It is no wonder that 

 the female Meloe produces 5,000 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 complex series of this life- 

 history is accomplished by an extremely indiscriminating instinct. The 

 newly-hatched Meloe has to get on to the body of the female of one 

 species of bee ; but it has no discrimination whatever of the kind of 

 object it requires, and as a matter of fact passes with surprising rapidity 

 on to any hairy object that touches it ; hence an enormous majority of 

 the young are wasted by getting on to all sorts of other insects. These 

 larvae have been found in numbers on hairy Coleoptera as well as on flies 

 and bees of wrong kinds. The writer has ascertained by experiment 

 that a camel's-hair brush is as eagerly seized, and passed on to, by the 

 young MeloS as a living insect is.' The oil-beetle cannot fly, and its 



